


Hard Sun

by Lafayette1777



Category: Arctic Monkeys, British Singers RPF, Indie Music RPF, Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Affairs, Alex is kind of shitty at his job, Alex makes bad decisions, Alternate Universe, And Nick...don't even get me started, Arms Dealing, Bisexuality, Crime, Crime empires, Existentialism, F/M, I know I usually say I have no idea what I'm talking about, I started reading Ralph Ellison in the middle of this and it got a little weird, I've been writing this since July and honestly it's gotten so out of hand, Interpol lyrics, It was fun to write but I haven't the faintest idea if it's readable, M/M, MI5 - Freeform, Miles is shady, This is so crazy, Tinna is a bad ass, Treason, and Jamie..., and a bit fixated, bank robberies, but mostly just improbable, but this time I really don't, eveyrbody's kind of intense though, government agents, little bit surreal, mysterious Ruby Tuesday activities, oh Jamie, thanks Stanzie, this is a bit of a mess, title is from the Eddie Vedder song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5076370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lafayette1777/pseuds/Lafayette1777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>At 20, Miles Kane distinguished himself by robbing three banks in quick succession, shooting a young policeman, and escaping eastwards unscathed. Three years afterwards, he had used those funds to build himself up into one of the most dangerous and far-reaching arms dealers in the world. Then, he dropped off the map.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Now, he’s back in London, apparently seeking the quiet life. Except MI5 agent Alex Turner isn’t quite ready to forgive.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1 - Breathe the Burn

**Author's Note:**

> So, here it is. That AU I haven't been able to shut up about for months. As you can probably tell from the tags it's gotten a bit off the hook.  
> As per usual, I only have a vague idea of what I'm talking about - MI5 is not an easy agency to pin down information about, for obvious reasons, so inevitably some liberties have been taken. Let me know if stuff doesn't make sense, and I'll try to decipher whether it's supposed to make sense or not.  
> Anyways, enjoy! I look forward to your feedback!

_He should’ve known better._

_He wishes he could say it’s not his fault. Wishes, almost, that he was coerced and misled and oblivious. And though it is possible he’s being manipulated, that doesn’t mean he’s not solely responsible for putting himself here. He’s arrived in this bed of his own accord._

_Miles is curled around him, snoring softly against Alex’s shoulder and the scar it’s burdened with. Undisturbed in both the day and the night, or at least that’s the facade Miles maintains. But there’s nothing innocent about him, regardless of whether his intentions for Alex are pure._

_There is no happy ending to all this._

_Miles shifts slightly in his sleep, and Alex takes the opportunity to further entangle himself, to press his nose into Miles’s hair and inhale. Relish it all while the facade still exists._

_The night leaks in, and time slips on, all of it into nothing._

 

 

 

**Part 1 - Breathe the Burn**

 

_Four months earlier:_

“So...Miles Kane is back.”

He knows this. He’d heard the initial whispers in the intelligence network. He’d heard that the rumors were, in fact, confirmed. He’d heard that the case was officially back in MI5’s jurisdiction long before his pay grade should have let him.

Now, though, he feigns ignorance.

“Really,” Alex replies insouciantly, stirring his tea without looking up.

Matt, perched on the edge of Alex’s desk, snorts. “Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly lost interest, you skinny twat.”

Alex makes wary eye contact with him, carefully indifferent.

“Your poker face is terrible.” Matt shakes his head and leaps back on to the floor, crossing back towards his own work station a few feet away. “I’m only telling you so you won’t do anything stupid.”

“Why would I do that, Matthew?” Alex sighs, directing his gaze back down to the pile of paperwork before him. 

Matt just frowns.

m m m

Twenty minutes later, he’s in front of the Chief Intelligence Officer’s desk, fidgeting in a patch of afternoon sunlight.

James Ford appraises him coolly. “I know why you’re here.”

“You’ve read me file?”

“Shockingly, yes,” Ford retorts caustically. 

“Just baseline surveillance, is all. Nothing more,” Alex says. He’s sitting in one of the scratchy polyester chairs placed haphazardly in front of Ford’s cheap, regulation desk. The light from the boxy window above their heads illuminates the dust particles drifting through the muggy air. 

“I don’t want this getting out of hand.” Ford narrows his eyes and reaches for the cup of coffee to his left.

“Why’s everyone under the impression I’ve got some sort of feckless vendetta planned?” Alex scowls, aware that the exasperation invading his words isn’t aiding his plight. “I just have a vested interest in seeing him brought in. Just like everyone else.”

“Assuming we _can_ bring him in. If he’s back in the UK he’s probably covered his tracks pretty damn well,” James retorts. “And are you really trying to tell me your interest in this case isn’t personal?”

Alex refrains from rolling his eyes, but leans forward in his seat until he can rest his elbows on his knees. “Regardless, you know there’s no one who’s better equipped to handle this. I’ve done me research. I know exactly who I’m dealing with.”

Alex leans in further inadvertently, and Ford bites his bottom lip. The gesture smells vaguely of contemplation, but Alex has a feeling he’s already won. 

Finally, James sighs. “You can gather intelligence. Obviously, do not engage. He knows _we_ know he’s here. He’s not going to slip up, but if he does, it’s probably going to be our only chance.” Ford trails off, frowning. He adds, “Just be alert. I have half a mind to get you to report your findings to Chung, but I know you two have a history, so talk to Helders instead.”

“Thank you,” Alex says, face still half contorted by the wince at Alexa’s name. He takes his leave without another word, before Ford can change his mind.

On the other side of the door, he nearly runs into Matt.

“You’re going to get us killed, aren’t you?” Matt says, only half joking. 

“Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“Only sacked, then,” Matt laughs. “Killed and sacked? Or sacked and killed? Depends who gets to us first, I suppose.”

“It’s just surveillance, Helders. This isn’t telly.” Alex strolls toward his desk and slips into his jacket, careful to conceal the waves of nervous excitement rolling through him. This has been a long time coming, and it thrills him to a degree almost alarming. “Dinner?”

“Sure,” Matt mutters, still not quite sold. 

The air outside is hot and thick, seeming to weigh down all it touches - the trees along the sidewalk, Alex’s neat quiff, the structure of the Thames House itself. Trapped in a pair of crisp, black suits, Alex and Matt break into a sweat in seconds. London is suffocating; it seems fitting that Miles Kane would choose such an inhospitable time of year to return, when the city is dragged down by a heat it’s always been so maladapted to. 

No discussion is needed in regard to the meal. They end up in their usual hole-in-the-wall Thai place just as the sun sets, taking the corner table where every few seconds a rotating fan sprays them with warm hair. Alex tries not to notice the way Matt keeps sending him intermittent, concerned glares over his water glass. 

“So when are you going to head over to the address?” Matt asks quietly, while indicating his order on the menu to the waitress. 

“Tomorrow morning,” Alex replies briskly. “The Secretary’s already approved invasive surveillance. I’m green-lit all the way.”

“As long you don’t engage,” Matt says, a hint of warning in his voice. 

“As long as I don’t engage,” Alex affirms, attempting and failing to conceal his smile. 

“You’re a psychopath,” Matt laughs, seeing his expression. 

“No, that’s _him_ ,” Alex clarifies. “And he’ll get what he deserves.”

Matt’s expression has turned serious again when he says, “If he’s back in the UK, than you know he thinks he’s safe. He thinks he’s untouchable, and he’s probably right. We’ve never been able to properly pin anything on him before. Not the robberies, not the arms dealing, not even your--”

“I know, I know,” Alex says irritably. “Things are going to change.”

“I’ve never heard you sound so self-assured.”

“I’ve been waiting for this a long fucking time,” Alex can’t help but hiss, leaning across the table. The food comes and disrupts the intensity of his conviction. “And,” he pauses, arranging the chopsticks between his fingers, “things already _have_ changed, really.”

“How so?”

“Preliminary intelligence has gathered some interesting details. He’s under a pseudonym, of course, but he was still spotted entering the country. Six has been keeping tabs on him, even in the last few years of...inactivity,” Alex says, through a mouthful of rice.

“He’s our age, ain’t he? Must’ve changed a lot in the last decade,” Matt remarks, eyes flitting over the half empty restaurant every few seconds. The conversation is just general enough to remain within protocol, but constant vigilance is a habit impossible to shake. 

Alex nods vigorously. “You can’t imagine.”

“You’ve read the report?” Matt asks, and when Alex nods again he adds with a smirk, “Are you gonna make me guess?”

“I tell you the situation when I get confirmation tomorrow.”

Matt rolls his eyes. “And I’m the one being melodramatic.”

Alex just grins, spinach caught in his teeth.

m m m

His mobile vibrates, penetrating the odd stillness of the night, just after he’s said goodnight to Matt and turned the corner in the direction of the nearest tube station. It’s a text from Jamie, characteristically clipped and to-the-point. 

_Katie’s just left._

Alex replies with one thumb, boarding the train home as he does. _Meet you at mine at half eight._

Jamie doesn’t reply, which means he has no objections. Neither of them has ever been keen on dwelling between the lines of digital communication. Alex takes a seat on the half empty train, bobbing one knee in anticipation. It’s going to be one of _those_ evenings, he suspects, with few words and guilt postponed until the morning. It’s perfect timing, really - with the news about Kane, he’s in need of a way to burn off some energy before it all begins in the morning. 

Jamie’s waiting for him when he steps into his flat, bent over to prod through the contents of his fridge. The air has grown hot and stale since he left it this morning, and it takes a conscious effort to breathe in. Jamie’s head pops up at the sound of his footsteps, careful side part drooping in the heat. 

“You’ve got exactly fuck-all to eat,” he greets. 

“Does your wife not feed you?” Alex snaps back. The venom behind it is meaningless; it’s simply their way, always has been. All part of the game. “Where’s she gone this time, anyways?”

“Rome for a shoot,” Jamie mutters, going back to rummaging among the condiments and the single egg and the cheap beer before eventually letting the door slam shut. The rush of cool air soothes Alex’s senses just long enough for his guard to go down, for the words to slip forth.

“You’re never going to tell her, are you?”

The stony, unyielding look Jamie sends him is answer enough. Alex thinks about apologizing for crossing that elusive line they seem to always be toeing, but before he can Jamie has traversed the space between them to smash his lips against Alex’s. The air between them goes from stagnant and humid to searing in the space of a second, and then there’s no air between them at all. 

m m m

Jamie slips out of bed while the world is still dark and quiet, and Alex pretends to be asleep while the older man picks up his clothes, kisses him on the side of the mouth, and disappears. Alex waits a few long minutes after the sound of the door shutting before he, too, unfurls from the sheets and heads for the balcony, lighting a cigarette as he goes. 

London breathes beneath him, just as Jamie had not so long ago. 

He sits, letting his feet dangle over the railing, watching the traffic flow below him. He’s in only his shorts but the anonymity of such a large city serves as protection. He finds that sometimes he’s still caught off guard by the enormity of it - a remnant of growing up in Sheffield, he supposes. He blows smoke towards the sidewalk and pretends that it makes more of a difference than it ever will. 

Back inside, Jamie’s left one of his socks. Alex picks it up from the carpet and drapes it over the arm of the settee to remind himself to give it back next time. Jamie always leaves long before the sun comes up, even if Katie’s gone. Alex has never questioned it, and probably never will, if he knows himself. 

The darkened flat seems strangely barren at this time of night, with only a car horn or bass line invading the silence every now and again. Alex closes the windows against the noise, turns on all the fans, and resigns himself to the fitful sleep he knows he’s going to need to meet a day like tomorrow head on. 

Ten minutes later, he’s bent over the kitchen counter, going through the Miles Kane files once again. 

This is not healthy behavior. He knows that, even as he sorts through information on the original bank robberies and the arms dealing that followed. Miles Kane grew his reputation through ruthlessness, and effectively made himself untouchable via some combination of bribery and intimidation. When he disappeared, some believed he’d finally been taken out, but Alex had never bought it. He’d been sure Miles was still out there, lurking. Planning. But why he’s decided to risk returning to the UK is beyond Alex’s comprehension. Kane must know that a pseudonym won’t be enough to keep him out of reach of the law, but he must be so confident in the knowledge that they have no hard evidence to pin him down for his original sins, and all that have occurred in the interim, that he’s unconcerned.

Alex is going to change that. 

The resolution settles in his gut and he’s overtaken, again, by nervous excitement. He lays out his clothes for tomorrow and sets his shoes by the door. Against his better judgement, he checks the magazine of the handgun he shouldn’t have, stashed under his bed. It serves to sober him up, pull him out of mindless enthusiasm. Finally, he collapses atop the sheets and drifts into sweaty, restive sleep. 

m m m

Saturday morning rolls around and he borrows Matt’s car to head out toward suburbia, where the townhouses slowly begin to space out far enough to be bordered by shreds of lawn. Beckenham seems alarmingly average, the houses of weathered brick or stone, the cars mid sized and the yards dry and bleached by the sun. Dogs are being walked as he scans the numbers on the doors, passing weathered bins at the head of every cement driveway. When he comes across number 505, he slows, but not noticeably, to squint at the closed blinds. Nothing moves. A black Audi with a scratch on the driver’s side door is parked neatly in front of the garage. Alex circles the neighborhood once more and then backs into an empty driveway a few houses down from the one of interest. 

He takes a few moments to stare reverently at 505 before calling Matt. 

“How is it, then? A proper lair of evil?” Matt snickers. “The arsehole of the universe?”

“There’s a sandbox in the front yard.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Matt says. “You sure it’s the right place?”

“According to the intelligence,” Alex replies, glancing at the file on the passenger seat beside him. “And it actually confirms what Six saw when he crossed the border.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line while Matt puts it together. “Holy shit,” he breathes finally. “You’re saying he has a kid?”

“And a wife.”

They had entered the country as Miles and Tinna Bergs. Her passport claimed her as Icelandic, but no one has been able to verify that. In fact, there’s no intelligence on her at all, in connection with Miles Kane or otherwise. So far, she mainly seems to be serving as a distraction from the boy: five year old Sullivan, presumably their son, his existence previously and entirely unknown. 

“Oh my sweet lord,” Matt says, and then lets out a slightly nervous chuckle. “Well, I imagine that changes things.”

“Just not sure how,” Alex finishes. 

“Suppose you’ll find out.”

“Suppose I will.”

Alex hears Matt sigh, and then the sound of shuffling papers. “Al, I’ve got a meeting. Phone me if anything interesting happens. And be fucking careful, for christ’s sake.”

“Matthew, what else would I be?”

Matt snorts and hangs up on him. Alex’s gaze swivels back towards the silent eyes of number 505’s front windows. Finally, just as the day’s commuters begin to stir, something moves behind the second floor blinds. 

m m m

Very little happens, that first day. Such is the nature of surveillance, and because Alex expects nothing less, every mundanity is suddenly thrilling. He’s taking note of a fat looking squirrel crossing the yard when the front door first cracks open. There’s something about the hesitancy with which it opens that seems significant to Alex, something in the delicacy of the motion. He squints through the tinted windshield as a woman with auburn hair emerges, steps preternaturally light. He recognizes her without having to glance at the file he’s already studied exhaustively. 

Tinna Bergs. 

He watches her intently, aiming to commit every detail to memory. Her eyes are sharp, and before she’s stepped fully into the morning light, he sees her gaze sweep over the lawn, the street, and every moving object in between. It’s a practiced maneuver, that. The ability to take in and analyze an entire situation in the space of seconds. MI5 has always taught observation on a level far above your average citizen’s scope of awareness, and Bergs seems to have picked up her own method. Alex can only assume that this means she has no illusions when it comes to her husband and his business. Her knowledge, he gleans, must be substantial, which suggests that in the years that Kane has been off the map, he hasn’t given up on the life of crime he announced himself with. 

She spends a few minutes standing on the front stoop, absolutely still, left ear angled toward the street. The sounds of the neighborhood surround her. Once satisfied, she steps on to the vague path of shorter grass in front of the steps and begins a careful circumnavigation of the yard, carding a hand through the dried leaves of the bordering bushes and inspecting every crevice. She disappears behind the house and when she reemerges, she’s just as focused and thorough as she reaches the front door again. With a quick glance over her shoulder in what could almost be Alex’s direction, she slips back inside. 

He makes a note once the door clicks back into place. Beside her name, he writes _professional._

At noon, he’s fighting against the lulling effects of warm sunlight and sleep deprivation to keep his eyes from drooping. He thinks about texting Jamie to reprimand him for keeping him awake last night, maybe rile him up a little bit now so he can benefit from it later. But before he can reach for his mobile, however, the garage door begins to lift, revealing the usual menagerie of suburban storage: rows of boxes yet to be unpacked and a few power tools wrapped in clear plastic. 

And the devil himself.

The light illuminates short brown hair bordering a soft face with drooping dark eyes. One look and Alex has no doubts that it’s him, despite the time that’s passed. Even from this distance, it’s the eyes that tip him off. Maybe the set of his mouth, too. It’s a face he’s never going to get out of his head. 

Looking perfectly innocuous in jeans and a football jersey, it’s Miles Kane. 

Alex stops breathing. Miles looks pensively out at the street, then takes a sip from the mug in his left hand. Alex instinctively bows his head slightly, even though he’s a few driveways outside of Miles’s current field of vision. He stays that way, only a pair of eyes and a neat quiff jutting over the dashboard. Miles, eventually, frowns in the direction of the mailbox across the road and turns back toward his own cluttered garage. He motions toward someone in shadow, and then Tinna and a fair haired boy come into view. The surveillance camera photo from Heathrow appears in Alex’s mind. _Sullivan._ Even from this distance, he can see the way Miles beams at the kid before scooping him up and venturing into the yard. The domesticity of it all gets under Alex’s skin in more ways than one. 

Sullivan, perched on Miles’s hip, is nodding along to whatever Miles is animatedly telling him about. They wander about the lawn, Miles occasionally pointing at the ground or the front of the house, and then looking back to Sullivan ebulliently. Alex tries to look less baffled than he feels. 

And, all the while, Tinna perches at the edge of the scene, eyes alert.

m m m

Katie’s no longer in Rome, but sends a selfie from a cafe perched on the edge of the Grand Canal. Jamie doesn’t show him the picture, but Alex imagines she probably looks lovely in the Venetian sunset. He says as much, and Jamie takes the bait and bites back. First with words, and then literally. 

They end up sprawled over Alex’s sheets, satisfied at having raised the temperature of the room to even more absurd degree. Jamie snags the post-coital cigarette from his fingers and tosses it into the bedside ashtray remorselessly, before scooting over to kiss Alex languidly. Alex submits, eyes closing, letting Jamie’s hands roam over him again as the final smoky remnants of his last drag curl around them. 

“I’m yours,” Alex breathes, before he can stop himself, as Jamie’s stubble brushes over his jaw and fingers dig viciously into his hip. Jamie only grunts in response, and Alex thinks, _but you’re not mine._

He can’t decide if that bothers him. 

And then Jamie’s head dips lower and Alex really can’t find it in himself to be bothered by anything at all. 

Later, as the air still vibrates from the force of the door closing behind Jamie, Alex crawls out of bed despite the thick air. He heads for his shoebox sized bathroom and climbs into a cold shower with very little thought. It’s only once he’s slid down the tiled wall into a sitting position, the frigid water pelting his back, that he thinks he probably should be sleeping. Regardless the fact that the adrenaline of the day and the night still courses through him. He waits for the exhaustion in his eyes to leak into his bones. 

When he does, eventually, return to bed, all he sees behind his lids is a pair of drooping brown eyes. 

m m m

The day is overcast, and yet somehow the lack of sun does nothing to mitigate the heat. The city seethes, waiting for the wave to break, and all the while Alex sits in an air conditioned car and watches Miles Kane’s grand plans unfold. 

Such plans include, currently, a pile of bricks, a shovel, and a seemingly unrelated can of white paint. 

He’s already dug out a path from the front door to the driveway, and is now using the shovel to level out the dirt in preparation for the bricks. Sullivan toddles after him, clearing away the shreds of dry grass, clearly elated by his role in the project. Then Miles tosses the shovel away, reaches for a rubber mallet, and they get to work laying the walkway in earnest. Sullivan takes up the job of handing over the bricks one by one to Miles, who bends over on his knees to tap them into place in a complicated-looking interlocking pattern. Sweat dampens the ends of his hair and darkens the back of his Libs t-shirt. He motions toward the pile and says something to Sullivan which Alex suspects is along the lines of, “Watch your fingers.”

And Tinna, sitting on the front stoop, doesn’t spare a glance at them, eagle eyes fixed on their surroundings instead. She, unmistakably, is a coiled wire, even if she gives off the facade of domestic companionship. 

There’s something very strange about all of it.

Matt phones around midday, breaking Alex out of his contemplative stupor. “So?” Matt asks. “Seen him bury any bodies yet?”

Alex laughs lightly. “Nah.”

“What’s he doing, then?”

“I dunno. He’s just laying brick.”

There’s a pause. “Wait, literally? Or is that a euphemism?”

“No, literally,” Alex replies, squinting at the yard. “He’s actually doing a bunch of DIY shite.” 

“Christ, that sounds boring,” Matt says, and Alex can practically hear him shake his head in disbelief. “You’re sure it’s actually him, right? Not just some poor sod who looks similar?”

“Positive,” Alex answers without a moment’s hesitation. He’s thinking of the scar on his right shoulder, just to the left of his collarbone. The one that can still yank him from sleep in the depths of the night, throbbing without tangible reason. The one Jamie loves to run his lips over amorously. 

“Well, Ford wants to see you by the end of the week, then. In person.” Matt sighs. “And there’s no fucking way he’ll believe _me_ if I tell him Miles Kane’s new enterprise is home improvement.”

“Yeah, tell him I’ll be in by Friday.” 

He hangs up just as Miles runs out of bricks, even though he’s got a yard or so of empty space still to be filled where the walkway should meet the drive. Alex watches him sit back on his haunches and frown, before shrugging and springing to his feet. Tinna’s head turns swiftly at the sudden movement, fingers curling into a fist, until she lays eyes on Miles again. Kane grabs the can of paint and a brush and strides purposefully toward the backyard, Sullivan tottering along after him. Tinna surveys the street one last time, then slinks after them on silent, careful feet. 

m m m 

Alex makes an actual effort to be on time for work on Friday, knowing the James will already be there when he arrives and he’ll have inhaled enough of his first cup of coffee not to laugh in Alex’s face. So by the time they sit down on opposite sides of Ford’s desk to debrief, Alex is sweating from anticipation and James from caffeine. 

“So? You’ve made progress?” Ford starts off, already impatient. 

“Depends what you define as ‘progress,’” Alex replies, taking his time with each word. Ford has no choice but to listen to him, with Six and the Yard breathing down his neck, waiting to hear what kind of threat Kane is. And Alex has every intention of maintaining what little sway he has for as long as possible. 

“What’s he up to?”

“Nothing as of yet, but he’s certainly not settled into simple domestic bliss with any kind of commitment,” Alex posits, picking at a stray string on one cuff. 

“How do you figure?”

“It’s the wife. Bergs. I think the marriage thing is a cover,” he pauses, letting tension build before the reveal. “I think she’s a bodyguard.”

“So Kane’s not quite convinced that he’s safe.” Ford shrugs, accepting the possibility. “What does that mean for the son?”

“Could still be theirs. Honestly, he’s so young he’s probably rather irrelevant at this juncture.”

“No, I’m not so sure.” James takes another sip from his styrofoam cup and fidgets in his seat. “If Bergs is a bodyguard, then Kane thinks he’s not out of the line of fire. Why would he drag his son into a country he’s not perfectly assured is safe?”

“So you reckon he’s not here of his own accord?”

“I think it’s a possibility. If he’s been upstaged in the arms dealing business in the last few years and has been off the map because of a loss of power, than it seems likely he may have fallen under the control of a more influential boss who’s promised to fend off any enemies Kane made during his own supremacy. And we all know he made plenty of those.” Ford eyes him shrewdly, watching the gears turn behind Alex’s eyes. 

“Quite a fall from grace if he’s become such a subordinate that he’s had to move back here, where he’s bound to know we’ll be after him,” Alex replies, a note of skepticism creeping into his voice. The Miles Kane he’s studied always seemed far from being anything remotely close to a subordinate, but certainly tides can change. If the tables truly have been turned then Alex may be just grasping the edge of a network of dangerous people. 

“If you’re right about Bergs, she may be defending him against more parties than one.” Ford glances down at his desk, and Alex can feel the dismissal coming. “Anyways, you have me intrigued. You’re authorized for continued surveillance, so don’t cock it up.”

“I’ll do my best.” Alex departs, running the new possibilities through his mind with every step on the linoleum floor. Something isn’t sitting right with him; it’s not that he doesn’t agree with James’s postulations, but rather that they seem to be pointing him toward an inexplicable feeling of foreboding. He shouldn’t let it pervade him, but he already knows it’s going to be a sleepless night long before his head hits a pillow. 

m m m

With one cheek propped on a fist, elbow on the driver’s side window sill, Alex will admit he’s having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The warm car and the stillness of the avenue lull him mercilessly toward darkness with every slow blink. Miles’s usual construction projects have halted, unaccountably, for the day, the walkway still missing a few rows of bricks, half the shudders still waiting to be painted a crisp white. Occasionally, he perceives a shadow move behind the drawn blinds, but nothing has yet to come of it. 

Alex has had about as much fun this week as he expected - scouring the neighborhood for parking spots clandestine enough yet still with a direct view of the house, pawing through the files he’s already read cover to cover, and even, once, permitting himself a stroll through the baking midday sun down the opposite side of the street, throwing nonchalant glances at the house in question before doubling back. Since the only reason to go into the office recently has been his weekly meeting with Ford and to collect whatever new CCTV footage they have of Kane running errands in town (some of which Alex had followed him on anyway), he’s had no qualms with switching to plain clothes when surveilling. At the moment, though, his comfortably worn jeans and soft cotton Lou Reed shirt are only serving to drag him deeper toward unconsciousness. 

The dull roar of an approaching vehicle finally manages to snap him out of his afternoon lethargy. 

It’s a rather conspicuous looking black Suburban, slowing and finally grinding to a stop in front of Kane’s residence. Alex straightens up in his seat, half asleep to fully alert in seconds. The engine of the Suburban shuts off, but no one emerges. Inside the house, there’s suddenly movement on the second floor, from the room he’s grown to suspect is Sullivan’s. Eventually, the front door cracks open, and Tinna prowls across the front lawn to the waiting vehicle. She approaches the window and seems to confer with the driver for a few long moments, then steps back as two men emerge from the car. Alex can see neither of their faces, but even from this distance he gleans that they’re both oppressively large. They follow Tinna back across the grass, and it’s abundantly clear by her posture that she’s no longer calling the shots. 

Miles, dressed in a crisp, dark suit, opens the front door before they can do it themselves. He greets them with a grin wider than his face before ushering inside, and closes the door with a deliberate hand afterwards. 

It doesn’t reopen for four hours. 

There is no movement inside the Suburban, even though Alex never saw the driver get out. He squints at the tinted glass but gets nothing for his trouble. In the house, shapes move behind the first floor curtains, but Alex can draw no definitive conclusions. When the men remerge, Alex sees his chance and grabs blindly for the camera in the passenger seat next to him, and snaps a few quick zoomed in pictures of a couple of generic, rough faces. They ring no bells in his own mind, but he’ll see what the rest of the department has to say. Tinna stands on the doorstep until the Suburban pulls away, as Alex gets one last photo of the license plate. 

The sun has begun to set, now, a murky dusk settling in the humid air. Commuters flood back into the neighborhood. Alex is meant to have dinner with Jamie, but it’s ambiguous as to whether food will actually be involved. Just as he’s getting ready to slip off, though, Kane appears in front yard again, lighting up a cigarette as he steps into the grass. He’s shed his suit jacket and rolled up the shirtsleeves of his pristinely white button up to the elbow. He strolls the yard for a few moments, smoke trailing up against the orange of the sunset, giving everything an eerie glow. Alex watches, strangely transfixed. 

Miles settles into a sitting position on the front stoop, surely dirtying an expensive looking pair of trousers. Finally, he turns his head in just the right direction so that the light hits the side of his face and lights up the bruise along his left cheekbone. He finishes his cigarette, grinding the butt into the grass with the heel of an ornately decorated leather oxford, shoulders drooping. 

With one final look at the dying orange light on the horizon, Miles trudges back inside, and Alex drives away. 

m m m

Tuesday night, and the sun has set by the time Tinna sets out across the brick walk, hurtling the last few feet where the bricks run out in order to reach the cement of the driveway. She’s got car keys in one hand and a couple of reusable grocery bags in the other, pairing non descript black jeans with an equally nondescript floral blouse for her evening shopping. The picture of domesticity. 

She disappears down the road in the scratched Audi and Alex turns his attention back to the house, where the soft light in the second story window suggests Sullivan is getting ready for bed. Alex, not for the first time, wonders what Miles is up to - if he’s helping Sullivan gets into his pajamas or tucking the boy in or plotting world domination. Or doing all simultaneously. 

It still remains somewhat of a mystery what Miles does all day anyway, when he’s not DIYing or shopping or playing football with Sullivan in the front yard. Alex has no doubt that something shady is going on, even if he can’t glean the nature of it, even if Miles no longer seems to be trotting across the known universe with a gun under his jacket and a trail of destruction in his wake. The last time Six was sure Kane was still dealing heavy arms was when he was in Mozambique, and the operation attempting to catch him red handed had gone so tits up that there was a parliamentary inquiry. Or so Alex heard, at least. That was four years ago and since then Miles had dropped off the face of the earth. Alive only, for the most part, in Alex’s memory and the scar on his shoulder. 

He decides to wait to call it a night until Tinna gets back, until the house goes dark. The few nights he’s spent here have been uneventful and tonight he hasn’t got the vibe that anything worthy of his time is on the horizon. The light fades to nothing in Sullivan’s window, and Alex can only assume that Miles returns to the downstairs and the flickering blue light of the telly screen. Alex turns his eye back toward the way Tinna departed, waiting for her headlights to reappear. 

So it’s natural that he should miss the figure, a splotch of dark against a dark night, approach through the humid air from the other direction. 

And by the time Alex spots him, recognizing the familiar posture and getting just the slightest glimpse of the face in the light of a neighbor’s doorway lamp, it’s too late to move. The passenger side door is unlocked; Miles Kane slides right in, not a moment of hesitation, and Alex freezes. 

Kane looks at him apathetically, eyes appraising. Alex doesn’t breathe, but finds himself pinned by his own volition against the driver’s side door, unable to move or distill the surreality of the moment into rational thought. Miles is wearing only gray joggers and a Strokes shirt that, oddly, is identical the one on Alex’s own torso. For several long moments, Miles presses his uneven lips together under the light of the dashboard and says nothing. 

Finally, though, there’s this:

“I dunno who you represent,” Miles drawls, then pauses half a beat and digresses, “You look familiar, actually. Have we met?”

Alex opens his mouth to reply, or maybe vomit, but Miles doesn’t wait for a response. 

“Doesn’t matter. What _does_ matter, however, is that if I see you around my house again, spying on me family, I’m going to skin you.”

Again he doesn’t seem to expect a rebuttal. He reaches for the door handle and slides out into the night again, but stops before letting it swing closed. He leans down and mutters, with the same expressionlessness of the previous threat, “Nice shirt.”

The door slams. Miles becomes one with the night before he reaches the house, and it’s a long while before Alex can get the shake in his hand under control long enough to fit the key in the ignition.


	2. Part 2 - Up and Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In which the surreal becomes commonplace._

**Part 2 - Up and Over**

  


It takes an entire pack of cigarettes and some immeasurable quantity of alcohol before Alex can begin to explain coherently to Matt what happened. And even then, it comes out in strange metaphors and trails off meaninglessly a few times before Matt can get a grip on the event itself, and not Alex’s alcohol-and-shock warped view of it. 

“He didn’t know who you worked for…” Matt scratches at the back of his head contemplatively. “He didn’t know he was threatening a government agent.”

Alex already knows where he’s going with this. It means two things: one, if Alex had had the time or the foresight to record the conversation, Kane could actually be brought in. As it is, though, the only evidence of the conversation is in Alex’s own memory, and given his history on the case, that won’t be enough to pin Kane down for longer than five minutes. 

Second, MI5 are not the only ones with their eyes on Miles Kane. 

Matt has stationed himself on Alex’s settee and gives no indication that he’ll be moving anytime soon. Alex, meanwhile, has been unable to stop moving since the encounter and has spent the last hour smoking and pacing back and forth maniacally across the worn carpet. It’s past midnight, he’s sure, despite the fact he hasn’t so much as glanced at his watch. 

“What do we do?” Alex chokes out. 

Matt leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and rub at his temples tiredly. “I dunno.”

“If we tell Ford--”

“He’ll pull you off the case immediately, I know,” Matt sighs. “But what choice do we have? Kane knows you’re there and he’s fucking dangerous.”

Alex halts the movement of his legs, only to have his hands begin to shake again as he fixes his eyes on the window. The darkness of the night combats the bright fluorescence of the room, and all he can see is his own haggard, panicked face reflected in the glass. “He didn’t even recognize me, you know.”

Matt’s expression turns a further shade of concerned. “It were a long time ago.”

“I know. It’s just...you’d think…” He shakes his head, trailing off as he reaches up to knead at the sore, dead tissue beside his collarbone. 

“You need sleep,” Matt declares, frowning at the look on his face. “I’ll stay here, on the couch. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“You don’t need to--”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll be alright.” Alex grinds a cigarette into the nearest ashtray and wonders whom Matt is more worried about doing something rash - Miles or Alex. “I’ll call Jamie.”

Matt raises an eyebrow. “He’s around? You’re sure?”

The subject of Alex’s and Jamie’s relationship is not something that comes up very often, in part because they’ve all known each other long enough to intuit the gist of things without having to get into details. No one’s particularly keen on discussing feelings, and regardless Alex has an inkling that if he ever did try to dissect what he and Jamie have at length anywhere but inside his own mind, none of the right words would come. It’s between the two of them and it’s visceral and white hot and gorgeous and if it’s love then Alex will never, ever say it aloud. 

He says, “Yeah, I saw him yesterday. He’ll be here.”

“Okay,” Matt relents, though skepticism still mars his tone. He heaves himself to his feet and reaches for his jacket, tossed over the back of the sofa. He looks almost as sweaty as Alex, but not from the heat. 

Alex puts down the heavy tumbler of vodka in his left hand to walk Matt toward the door, trying to will a little color into his cheeks and a little of the fear out of his eyes. Matt hugs him, quick and tight, before stepping into the hallway. “I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah? It’ll be alright.”

“Night, Matt.”

Alex pulls out his mobile to the sound of Matt’s receding footsteps, hand on autopilot as it selects the familiar contact. The phone rings for a great many agonizing seconds before reverting to Jamie’s lilting voicemail. Feeling his chest begin to tighten, he redials, movements just on the other side of frantic. Again, it rings ineffectually, and this time Alex isn’t soothed by Jamie’s recorded words. A second passes and a text vibrates his phone. 

_Katie just got back. Can’t talk._

When he can move and breathe again, he sheds his clothes and crawls into bed alone. He dreams of white hospital sheets and blood and a pair of round brown eyes looking at him dispassionately over the barrel of a gun. 

m m m

Jamie, eventually, makes it up to him, by managing to skip out on a trip to Katie’s parents’ place and bursting into Alex’s apartment by seven-thirty the next morning. Alex isn’t sure how Jamie knew that this was more than just a desperate booty call, an act of boredom or libido, but something else entirely. Maybe they communicate better than he thinks. 

Regardless, Alex is still in bed when the older man arrives, and one glance at the tenderness in Jamie’s look nearly ruins him irreparably right then and there. Jamie doesn’t even wait to take off his shoes before crawling on to the messy sheets beside him and pulling Alex in, against denim and stubble, and with something like comfort. Jamie makes no attempt to ask what’s happened, and Alex has never been so thankful. 

So he ignores his mobile and ignores thoughts of the Thames House and the man in Beckenham who haunts his dreams. He lets Jamie card through his hair and trace rough hands over his bare skin, muttering palliatives and reassurances all the way. 

“I’m sorry,” Jamie sighs out finally, and in the haze of it Alex can’t imagine what he’s apologizing for. He tilts his head to meet Jamie’s eyes, blue against brown, feels a thumb trace the sleep deprived darkness beneath his left eye. A few of the other man’s fingers rest on his pulse and Alex swallows against the gentle hold, reminding himself of the tangible and the safe as it exists now. 

He spends the remainder of the morning dozing against Jamie’s skin, high on the thought of being taken care of, and wondering what he’s done to deserve it. This isn’t the relationship he’d thought they had. 

A few hours pass and it becomes evident that he thought right. 

Middays crawls into existence and the temperature in the flat rises exponentially. Somehow, the sweat and the heat serves to make it all the more intimate. He feels closer to Jamie in the mutual suffering, seeing his own pink cheeks and wet hairline reflected back at him. Jamie’s got a hand tracing patterns over Alex’s nearly bare hip when his mobile chimes. Alex almost tells him to ignore it; by the time the words materialize it’s too late. 

Alex can tell who the text is from just from the set of Jamie’s mouth. 

“You’re going, aren’t you?”

Jamie’s eye break away from the screen slowly, and this is enough to confirm his answer. He says, after several long moments of loaded silence and evasive eyes, “She’s got news.”

“What sort of news?”

He shrugs. “Guess I’ll find out, eh?”

Alex rolls away from him, onto his back so he can reach the bedside ashtray. He needs to shower, and he needs to figure what the living fuck he’s going to do about the Kane situation, but mostly he needs to stop falling in love with Jamie Cook. 

Jamie stands and begins to reach around for his sunglasses and shoes, finally discarded at some point during the languid morning. He leaves a patch of warmth in the spot where he’d been laying moments before. Alex, inadvertently, finds himself sliding into it, breathing in the scent that clings to the sheets. Jamie, eventually, locates his things, and stands stiffly for a few moments before it becomes evident that there’s not much to say, and not much that will be said. 

He circles the bed once more, waits for Alex to raise his head, then bends down to kiss him briefly and warmly on the mouth. Without another word, he’s gone. 

m m m

Surrounded by the aftermath, both tangible and intangible, of the last twenty-four hours, Alex finally picks up Matt’s call. It’s irresponsible of him not to have done so earlier, but Matt seems understanding, considering the state Alex was in when he left last night. He’s ready to talk things out, decide on a strategy moving forward, but Alex has already made up his mind. 

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Al.”

“Bit late for that sentiment, Matthew,” Alex retorts, phone trapped between his ear and collarbone as he searches for clean clothes. Halfway into buttoning his shirt, though, he changes his mind and strips it off in favor of a shower instead. 

Matt huffs angrily. “You’re acting rashly.”

“Yeah, well, the fuck are you gonna do about it, Helders?” Alex hesitates in the bathroom, still tangled up in his pants, greasy hair falling into his eyes. He waits for Matt to say the one thing that might give him pause, senses the betrayal just on the edge of Matt’s lips. 

The silence extends. Alex knows he’s won; Matt won’t say a word to Ford, or anyone else. “Fuck you,” says Matt abruptly, and hangs up. 

m m m

In Beckenham, the sky is clear. Alex takes a different car, one of Five’s instead of Matt’s, and drives past the house as slowly as he dares. He doesn’t stop until he’s a few blocks down, then pulls out his mobile. Alexa answers on the third ring. 

“Hi, Lex, I need a favor.”

“Don’t call me Lex,” she says wearily. She sighs out, “What do you want and why are you asking me?”

“Do I really need an ulterior motive? It’s about the Kane case.”

She snorts. “That’s an ulterior motive in and of itself.”

“Lex--”

“I said _don’t._ ” Another sigh and the sound of shuffling papers. “Why aren’t you asking Matt, anyways?”

“Jesus, can’t you just look something up for me?”

She lets out a long breath through her nose and finally mutters, “Fine.”

“I need CCTV data on Kane. The places he most frequents and such.”

He hears the sounds of her nails clicking over a keyboard. “Matt’s report has him at a Wilko on High Street pretty often. Building supplies and all. And a restaurant in Penge. He’s been there with the family a few times--a Ruby Tuesday. And he goes into the city semi-regularly but he always manages to slip off the cameras.”

“How is that even possible in London?”

“Well, if anyone could do it, you know it’s him.”

“And yet he eats at fucking Ruby Tuesday.”

Alexa laughs, then, an old sound--it reminds him of long nights listening to Orbison and sharing cigarettes in warm, sepia light. By her abrupt silence he can tell she’s thinking of it too; not with longing, maybe, but longing has never been the same as nostalgia anyways. 

“I’ve gotta get back to work,” Alexa murmurs, and he feels the distance in her voice in his very bones. 

“Ta, Lex.”

“S’no problem,” she answers quietly. The line is dead before he can manage a goodbye. 

Alex hesitates, for a moment, baking slightly in the midday heat. Finally, he tears his eyes from Alexa’s contact in his mobile and puts the key back in the ignition. 

m m m

Miles Kane is wearing white jeans, almost too tight to fit the polka dotted button-up he has tucked into them. Over one shoulder he carries a brand new stainless steel ladder, which shimmers slightly in the sunlight and creates a glare against Miles’s dark, nearly impenetrable sunglasses. He takes a few long minutes to rope the ladder to the top of the Audi, seeming generally unhurried, and eventually climbs into the driver’s seat to head off. 

And Alex, parked a dozen cars down the line, would be lying if there wasn’t something of a rush that comes from the peril of his own position. 

The thought of Miles catching sight of him ignites something in his blood that both concerns and emboldens him. As for last night’s threat--well, he has a hard time believing Miles can do anything much worse to Alex than what he’s already done. He’d spent the better part of last night in states of unrest, thanks to the throbbing in his shoulder. Not even Jamie’s touch has been able to soothe the pain out of his system today. Alex is aware that he’s become rather fixated and yet--

And yet he can’t seem to bring himself to care. 

Miles rolls out into traffic and Alex follows at what he deems a safe distance, keeping just out of sight of Kane’s rearview mirror. The afternoon’s commuter traffic slows the collective pace to a crawl, but Kane turns off quickly into the parking lot of a row of boutique-like shops. Alex takes the spot diagonally across the lot and sits very still as Kane wanders into a vinyl store, disappearing behind the tinted front windows. If there was still any possibility that Kane wouldn’t recognize him, Alex might have pondered following him in, not just to browse the bins but also to get a moment to observe the man up close, instead of squinting at him through a windshield. Last night’s brief encounter hardly counts as a moment of observation; he can only view the memory of Miles’s brash actions through the haze of surprise and fear and something, even, like exhilaration. 

He waits, though, almost patiently, eyeing the storefront and his watch and the long arm of traffic to his left all at once. He’s sweaty and uncomfortable and having a hard time sitting still; is it just the heat or is it intuition? And if it’s the latter, would he listen to it anyways?

Twenty minutes pass and Miles is back again, stereotypical flat paper bag clutched to his chest. He ignores the Audi parked directly in front of the store and cuts to diagonally his left. Alex is watching, of course; he knows what’s going to happen and doesn’t do a thing about it. 

Miles climbs into the passenger seat with a weary sigh. He arranges himself so that the records lie carefully flat on his lap, absentmindedly smoothing the paper they’re wrapped in. Finally, he looks to Alex. “You know, mate, I thought we had this chat. You spy, I skin you.”

“You said if you caught me at your house. ‘Round your family. This involves neither,” Alex retorts, and though cold beads of sweat run down his spine, his voice hardly wavers. 

None of the anger of the night before is evident in Miles’s posture today. He smirks. “Cheeky cunt, you are.”

Alex chokes slightly; he wonders if he’s just swallowed down his own laugh. 

“I should kill you,” Miles adds as an afterthought, shrugging. “Should dump your body in the channel and disappear.”

“Can’t do that,” Alex rasps.

“No?”

“They’ll know it was you and they’ll find you. Or, someone will,” Alex says, going out on a limb, the panic subsiding. He’s absorbed by the surreality of it, now, lets the impossible take him into it’s fold. A skewed form of reason returns. 

Miles tilts his head and squints at him. “Who do you work for? Are you one of _his_ , sent to keep me in line? ‘Cause we had a fuckin’ agreement and I’ve done nothing to violate it.”

“Sounds like less of an agreement and more of a captivity, if you ask me.”

Miles ignores him, thinking deeper. “If you’re one of Wu’s you can fuck off too. We’re even and she fucking knows it.”

Alex shrugs. 

“Well, that only leaves but so many possibilities…” Miles sends him a sly smile. “And, in fact, since I’m not dead in a ditch that leaves only _one_ possibility.”

Alex freezes. His facade of serenity begins to crack; he shouldn’t be here. He’s got no leverage anymore and everything feels a lot more tremulous than it did a few seconds ago. 

“You’re a fed,” Miles declares, and the sneer on his lips is neither amused nor incensed. It’s self-satisfied. “Probably Five, maybe Six. Not Yard. They wouldn’t be so daring. Still breathing, la?”

Alex remembers to suck in a breath, and manages a nod. 

“You look a might unsettled.” Miles’s head falls back in a laugh at his own wit, and Alex just stares at the motion of his adam’s apple as he quietly loses the ability to comprehend the situation. 

With Alex gone mute, Miles makes a move to exit the vehicle, still chuckling to himself. He says, once the door’s open and his records are safely tucked under his arm, “Well, I can’t kill you, I guess, because folks will notice. So do with that what you will, Alex.”

Long after the door shuts and the Audi has melded into traffic, it occurs to Alex that he never once mentioned his own name. 

m m m

Radio silence is all that emanates from Jamie over the next few days, and Matt, too, keeps his distance; regardless, Alex comes into work for his usual Friday meeting with Ford and almost manages to make himself feel sane for doing it. 

James appraises him with his usual calculating stare, and Alex tries not to fidget guiltily under it. “Anything new?” Ford eventually asks, drawing out each syllable precisely, watching Alex’s reaction. 

“He had some suspicious looking visitors earlier in the week. Professional looking men in a big black Suburban. Bergs seemed to deal with it.” Alex shrugs. “And I’ve been following him on his shopping the last few days. More home improvement and bespoke suits.”

“Nothing definitively different, then?” Ford’s eyes bore into him expectantly. “And presumably he still knows nothing of your surveillance?”

“He seems oblivious to me.”

There’s a part of him, a piece somewhat less unraveled, that thinks that perhaps telling the truth would do him a favor - that maybe his testimony to Miles’s threat would be enough to garner the full attention of those in the government who could put Miles Kane away for good. That maybe he _does_ need to step back from this. 

But something else, naturally, takes over - he’s waited too long to take Miles Kane down himself to be willing give up the opportunity. And, if the status quo is maintained as it is now, he’s perfectly safe - Miles can’t kill him without MI5 knowing beyond any doubt who did it. What harm is there in continuing his surveillance, even if Five is in the dark and Miles isn’t? Miles has to slip up eventually. And it seems Alex is being granted a front row view. 

All of it sounds so perfectly reasonable in his mind that he nearly says it aloud. 

“That it, then?” Ford asks, presented only with one of Alex’s blank stares. “Six has been digging through what he was up to before he re-entered the UK. If our theory holds that he’s not here of his own accord, then you’ll be the one with the most up to date evidence of such a thing.”

Alex manages a nod. 

“So be ready.”

“Of course.”

Back in the hallway, in the foreground of the spread of cubicles fanning out before him, a figure is waiting just out of earshot of the thin door. Matt gives him an unreadable look as Alex straightens his jacket wordlessly and wipes at the sweat beneath his hairline. 

“Aye up,” Matt mutters in greeting. “How was it, then?”

Alex shrugs. 

“M’sorry. About a coupla days ago.” Matt’s gaze springs up from the floor. “You were being stupid, though, honestly.”

Again, Alex shrugs. “Probably.”

Matt smirks, and Alex feels the same expression taking over his face, too. There’s a chuckle, and Alex isn’t sure which one starts it, but a moment later any residual tension is lost fully in familiar patterns. They laugh, and wander back towards Matt’s desk. Matt takes the chair and Alex perches next to his computer as though it’s any other week on any other case and he hasn’t just lied outright to his superior. 

“I take it you didn’t tell him, then?” Matt asks, voice barely above a whisper. 

“I can handle this,” Alex replies, sharper than he intends. 

Matt leans back in surrender. “You know I’ll back you up regardless.”

All the hard edges drop out of both Alex’s voice and posture when he admits, “I know.”

For a moment, it looks like Matt wants to reach out for him, but a second later he’s turning back toward his desk and shuffling through his inbox. “Alexa told me you were looking for CCTV data this week. Been following around Kane, I take it?”

“Technically, he told me that if I was ever around his house again, he’d skin me.”

“You think he’s gonna honor a loophole?” Matt snorts. 

Alex laughs. “He can’t do a damn thing about it. I’ll go ahead and say it now: if I die anytime soon, it’s on him. Better send out an office memo.”

Matt, though, does not imitate his mirth. His lips press into a tight line and he turns back toward his laptop conspicuously. 

“What, Matthew?”

He scowls like he’s just tasted something sour. “I really don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

“I’m taking this more seriously than _anyone_ ,” Alex snaps. “I have been for a decade.”

Matt doesn’t bother to match his tone of indignation. He turns shrewd eyes on Alex and asks calmly, “Are you alright?”

“M’fine.”

“Kane’s not done anything else, has he?”

Alex shakes his head briskly, as his ability to lie has always been uprooted by those who know him best. 

“And Jamie?”

“Got nothing to do with Jamie,” Alex says resolutely, and almost believes it. 

There’s a long, strange pause before Matt acquiesces with a skeptical, “Okay.”

m m m

Standing in front of a High street Ruby Tuesday, Alex is ready to crawl out of his skin, and it’s not just because of the heat. 

In an old, wrinkled button up and a pair of black jeans, Alex stands on the curb across the street and sips on an iced coffee that he’s already deemed severely subpar. The unimpeded sun bleaches color out of the whole scene - every piece of greenery, every bright advertisement, even the blue of the sky itself is absorbed by the haze of heat and light. And July has yet to end. His quiff droops. 

Seated against the tinted window, Miles is barely visible, but Alex has no doubt it’s him - no one else gesticulates with every word in quite the same way. Tinna sits across from him, and though she seems to be nodding her head and replying she’s so muted in comparison it seems hard to believe that these two can possibly share a house, share a bed, a child. But maybe there is an affection there, in the way she prowls the yard so carefully before either Miles or Sullivan set foot in it. Alex wouldn’t know. 

The lunch hour begins to secede. Miles and family eventually join the trickle moving through the front doors, and before Alex can wave, Miles catches sight of him with an ambiguous twist of his lips. 

Miles releases Sullivan’s hand, then bends down to motion him toward Tinna - “Go with your mum, Sully” - before crossing the street leisurely, hands in his pockets. Tinna lifts Sullivan until he’s balanced against her hip but doesn’t continue into the parking lot, instead fixing Alex with a suspicious glare easily visible ten yards away. 

“Miles,” she hisses, but the Scouser only waves her off calmly. 

“Afternoon,” he drawls out, approaching where Alex perches expectantly on the sidewalk. 

“Why the fuck do you eat at Ruby Tuesday’s?” Alex blurts immediately. 

Miles chuckles, eyes darting back across the road for a moment. “It’s Sully’s favorite. Can’t imagine why.”

Everything about Miles is loose, his expression close to carefree. He’s not at all threatened by Alex’s presence; clearly he has no faith in the idea that Alex will actually be able to observe anything damning. Alex feels himself begin to scowl, and before he knows he’s snapping with something like indignation, “You know, you shot me once.”

“I _do_ know, actually.”

“Really?”

He grins cheekily, and something sparkles in his dark irises that is definitely a little unhinged. “You always remember your first, la.”

For a moment, Alex can only stare. “You’re a psychopath.”

“It were in that first bank, yeah? Up north?”

Alex nods, lips pursed. 

“You seem to be doing alright, though. Moved up into Five and all.” Miles shrugs. “Anyways, it’s character building. Good to know what a bullet feels like, if you ask me.”

“Have you ever actually taken one?” Alex says, and realizes a moment later that his teeth are gritted. 

Miles smirks. “Maybe I don’t need my character built.”

After that, Alex decides to focus on his breathing, and by the time he’s managed to unfurl the fingers of his right fist, Miles is already ambling across the road. “By the way,” he calls over his shoulder. “I were buying Stooges and some Lennon the other week. You didn’t ask in the car but I figured you were curious.”

“Ta,” Alex replies, jaw nearly unclenched. Miles gives a last amiable wave before taking Sullivan back from Tinna and disappearing in the direction of his car. 

m m m

Jamie.

Alex is standing in line in Tesco, arms full of ground beef and red sauce and only just realizing he’s forgotten the noodles, when the phone vibrates in his back pocket. Some primal, intuitive part of himself alerts him to who it is long before he manages to dig the mobile out and have a look at the message itself. 

_I’ve gotta talk to you. Be there in 20._

Alex has abandoned his purchases and is back on the damp streets before he even registers what he’s doing. No conscious decision has been made, and yet something about the way his heart is beating in the tips of his fingers has him at nearly a run. 

A late afternoon storm has left the roads wet and glowing beneath the streetlights, the air charged with humidity. Alex canters toward the underground and the stifling texture of closely packed bodies. By the time he’s taking the stairs two at a time up to his flat, he’s broken into a proper sweat, and Jamie is waiting. 

“You’ve made me forfeit me dinner.” Alex tries for a dry laugh, patting himself down for the keys. “Better be good.”

When he looks up again, though, Jamie doesn’t smile. The blue of his eyes is dulled by the dim overhead light of the hallway and the blankness of his expression seems to enunciate that fact. Alex waits until the door’s open and he’s beckoned Jamie inside before asking, “What’s wrong with you, then?”

Jamie gives no indication that he’s heard. His eyes roam the disarray of Alex’s under furnished flat as though he’s never seen it before. Or as if he’s never going to see it again. Alex breaks his expectant stare long enough to get out of his shoes and socks, in an attempt to cool down, and unclasp the collar of his shirt. Jamie is wearing a jean jacket buttoned to his neck, but shows no sign of discomfort. 

“Need a drink, or summat?” Alex adds, and finally gets a reaction - Jamie meets his eyes and gives a jerky nod. 

Alex glances through the contents of the fridge without really looking. The sense of foreboding in his bones and in the room has him unnerved, and he’s using all superfluous energy to keep his hands steady as he slides what he thinks is probably an IPA across the counter. Only after a few swigs do Jamie’s lips begin to move. 

He doesn’t beat around the bush. 

“She’s pregnant,” he murmurs. “And...we’re moving back to Sheffield to be nearer to both our parents.”

His voice drops out on the last word, eyes shutting abruptly. Alex, for his part, doesn’t look away as he should; he gapes wordlessly at Jamie for what feels like a solid minute, and a moment later finds himself collapsed into a chair, wide eyes on the floor. Jamie has to take a few long breaths and knead at the bridge of his nose before he can open his eyes again. “I’m sorreh,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah,” Alex rasps, and he can barely hear himself think over the silence that chases the statement. 

“We can still see each other...when you visit your parents, you know?” Jamie eventually lets out, and Alex pretends not to notice how the other man’s breath is ragged, his eyes carefully hidden. 

“Probably shouldn’t,” Alex retorts. “Since you’re gonna be a dad and all - congratulations,” he adds quickly, before the words rear back and choke him. 

“Alex--”

“You’ve gotta be off, I imagine,” he says briskly, wobbling back to his feet again. All of his joints feel loose and useless. He begins toward the door, but Jamie snags his arm before he makes it. 

“Alex, please…”

“Please what?” Alex snaps. “What choice do I have? What choice do _you_ have?” His voice cracks and comes in an octave lower when he tacks on, “How’d you think this were gonna end?”

Jamie’s hand slips from his elbow, downwards until he can intertwine their fingers. Alex’s eyes latch onto the shape of the two of them joined and his gaze swivels over it, searching for something indeterminable. It’s not comforting. 

“It were always her, yeah?” Alex breathes eventually. “I knew that.”

When Jamie doesn’t protest, he takes it as his cue to kiss the other man on the side of the mouth in goodbye and motion towards the door. Staunch the bleeding before he’s got nothing left. Instead, he gets Jamie’s hand grasping his jaw, pulling him into a full-fledged kiss - their last, Alex realizes. He squeezes his eyes together tight and lets himself reciprocate. The familiar texture and rhythm, the warmth of it all - they build together and threaten to shatter him. 

Jamie pulls away with one last nip at his bottom lip, but keeps their foreheads pressed together, one thumb still tracing circles over Alex’s cheekbone. Alex opens his eyes long enough to see that Jamie’s are impenetrably shut. 

He allows himself one final peck before leading Jamie toward the door. Their gazes meet just as it begins to swing closed, and in that moment Alex thinks he gets a better look at Jamie than he ever has before. 

The lock engages and all is quiet once again.


	3. Part 3 - Summer Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The disconnect widens._

**Part 3 - Summer Well**

After an afternoon of wandering the city, avoiding the inevitable, it’s hardly a surprise that he hails a cab out to Beckenham by the time night has set in. The driver takes him for a bit of a ride, but Alex says nothing. They arrive in front of the familiar brick facade long after the sun has disappeared from both sky and memory.

The evening before he’d waited all of forty-five seconds after Jamie’s footsteps had faded before breaking out the vodka. Luckily, Ford hadn’t expected him into the office the next day, so he hadn’t felt the need to drag himself from bed until the apartment had grown too hot for him to lay prone on the sheets without melting into the mattress. No matter how hard he tries, though, he can’t sweat Jamie out - the man permeates every thought in his head, every blood cell in his veins.

He _knows_ this, he _knows_ he’s gone wrong, and yet--

And yet here he is. 

The cab deposits him on the curb in front of the neat yard. Alex notes that the Audi isn’t in the driveway, despite the dancing blue light of the telly playing off the walls in the living room. Alex sticks his hands in the pockets of a pair of trousers in desperate need of an iron and waits for what’s probably inevitable. 

When the front door cracks open, he doesn’t move. 

The gait of the silhouette is enough to confirm it’s Miles. A streetlight registers that he’s wearing a pair of blue jeans and an untucked, half open Hawaiian shirt; beneath it a white vest shines bright in in contrast to the strength of the night. Alex waits until they’re both standing on the curb, close enough that he can see the tired lines around Miles’s eyes, before speaking. 

“Are you going to skin me?”

“No.” Miles pauses, then surges forward until barely centimeters separate them. He smirks, and some of the exhaustion seems to be replaced by something else. “But I am going to make you come undone.”

Alex realizes what’s going to happen a second before it does, but that doesn’t make him any more prepared. Then Miles’s hands are grasping gently at his cheeks, pulling him upwards, and his eyes are closing and his lips are parting and they’re snogging in earnest and Alex is caught entirely in the snare of the present. 

This isn’t supposed to be happening. 

He wonders, as his hands reach out to grab Miles’s hips and pull their bodies flush against one another, has this heat between them always been there? Or does he perceive it now because he needs it to exist? Because Jamie’s gone and everything has suddenly become so achingly stagnant? Regardless, the world as a whole has seemed very much out of his control recently. Whether this is taking back autonomy or submitting to the chaos, Alex isn’t sure. 

Miles’s lips are soft and prying, gentle but not meek. He strokes his thumbs across Alex’s cheekbones reverently and lets out the slightest of moans. Alex’s hands grab fistfuls of the back of Miles’s shirt, and he lets himself give in. Maybe it was always going to end up here. Maybe the line between fixation and infatuation has always been unfairly blurred. The scar on his shoulder makes no protest. 

Miles pulls away to grin at him, shark-like in the strange confluence of light and dark. Alex feels himself smile back, though he can’t imagine why - he’s breaking every oath he ever took for Queen and Country for reasons he can’t quite fathom. Still, though, his heart is beating in his throat in a way that isn’t quite unpleasant, and the feeling of Miles beneath his hands is oddly satiating - the thin hips and sharp points of his shoulder blades standing in contrast to the softness of his face and gentleness of his fingers. There’s something lovely, there, surely, and even the near guarantee that Miles is only doing all this to manipulate the pathetic, easy target of a government agent in front of him can’t dislodge the peculiar contentment in Alex’s gut. 

Miles laughs; Alex can’t tell if it’s at the situation or at Alex himself. Either way, he lets himself be lead across the lawn he’s spent so much time watching from a distance toward the similarly illustrious front door. Up close, he notices that the paint on the threshold is peeling. The image of the cracks in the white sticks in his mind long after they’re past the door and into the tiny front hall, passing an unremarkable kitchen on the right and a den on the left. The decorations in the latter resemble his Nan’s old parlour. 

The house is silent, save for their breathing and their footsteps on the narrow staircase heading upwards. Miles stops before they reach the second floor to trap him in another kiss. He’s standing a step above Alex, and so has no trouble overwhelming him completely. Alex’s fingers instinctively curl into his belt loops and pull him closer

“This is so fucked up,” Alex stutters, barely audible, between breaths. 

He doesn’t stop. 

m m m

Tinna and Sullivan (or ‘Sully’ as Miles singularly refers to him) are, as it happens, in Liverpool for the weekend. Miles doesn’t explain why, but he does allude to it being a point of some contention. Alex doesn’t ask. 

The information is only offered after Miles awakens to find Alex trying to slip into his trousers at four in the morning, and assures him there’s no immediate deadline. Not to mention, he’s in Beckenham - unless he plans to walk back into the city, he’s got no way out anyway. 

It’s with this realization that it begins to dawn on Alex what exactly he’s done - he swallows back common sense before it can do its job and properly horrify him. 

So he crawls back into Miles Kane’s bed, beneath the light summer sheets. Miles has his back to him, and though his breathing is steady Alex suspects the Scouser is no more asleep than he is. Alex’s eyes wander the darkened room to slow his heartbeat and kill time until the sun rises, when he’s hoping things are going to seem a lot less unmanageable. 

Upon closer inspection, something is off about the set-up of the room - when they’d stumbled in earlier, half wrapped in each other, Alex had automatically assumed it to be the master bedroom, presumably shared by the couple of the house. Now, though, he becomes aware that there is nothing feminine about the possessions littering the bureau, overflowing from the closet. It’s all suit jackets and mens’ shoes and the like. In fact, Alex isn’t even sure it’s the master bedroom at all. From what he’d gleaned on his brisk, half-conscious look around on the way in, the layout of the second floor suggests that this is not the main event. 

“Miles.” Alex isn’t sure why he bothers to whisper, but the stillness of the room has pervaded him and for the second time this evening he’s not entirely in control of his actions. 

Miles pretends to rouse himself from sleep, but Alex has no doubts that he’s been on alert. Maybe he doesn’t quite trust Alex to be more awake than him, or maybe evil doesn’t sleep. Either way, he affects grogginess when he replies, “Yeah?”

“This is your room?”

Miles says nothing for a moment, then turns to face Alex. They eye each other across the pillows. “Yes.”

“And Tinna…?”

Miles takes his own sweet time contemplating his answer, eyes boring into Alex. Alex isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but then Miles is licking his lips and muttering, “Down the hall. In the big bedroom.”

“You’re not really married, are you?” Alex answers prods, feeling brazen from the cover of darkness and the thought that he really can’t get in much deeper than he already is. 

Miles raises an eyebrow. “Depends what you mean by ‘really.’” He shifts under the sheets so his neck is at a better angle with the pillow, fluttering his eyelids with sleepy disinterest. “I’m sure you’ve already figured it out, anyways. Told your superiors and everything.”

Alex tries to look equally impassive, but can’t feign sleepiness. He’s exhausted, but there’s no way in hell he’s closing his eyes around Miles Kane. His gaze scans the room again until he finds what he’s looking for, aware of Miles’s watchful stare on him the whole time. 

Alex slips from the sheets without a word, padding lightly toward the record player in the corner. Miles doesn’t comment, just watches with his face half obscured by pillow as Alex cards through the pile of vinyl at his feet. He finds _Revolver_ before he even realizes that’s what he’s searching for. If there was ever a time for comfort music, he thinks, it’d be now. 

The record begins to spin and a moment later he’s back in bed, Miles’s lips on his. 

m m m

The morning comes and it is very, very strange. 

Alex does not feel as dirty and treacherous as he should. Instead, he mulls over whether he prefers his tea with or without sugar - suddenly, he can’t remember his usual order. His shoulder aches, but it doesn’t occur to him to ponder the fact that Miles made no comment on the scar last night. The devil himself sits across from him in the sunny breakfast nook, sipping at black coffee and reading NME. He’s in a vest and jeans and gives no indication that he’s at all uneasy with the situation. With the government agent in an arms dealer’s kitchen. 

“Miles?” Alex asks, breaking his own incredulous eyes from the room, populated by dated appliances and wallpaper. Not the lair of someone with the kind of funds Miles no doubt has. 

“Hmm?” Miles hums casually, flipping a page without looking up. 

“Why are you doing this?” Alex splutters abruptly. “Why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I fucking mean,” Alex snorts out. He motions broadly between them, but something frantic makes it into his gesturing, and Miles smirks. 

“Because you _entertain_ me, Alex,” Miles says fondly. “And I’m interested.”

“Entertain you to shoot me, did it?” Alex snarls, tapping his shoulder with the opposite hand. “Fuck off.”

“Collateral damage.” Miles shrugs. “Didn’t mean to upset you so much. And, I imagine that inspired you to switch to Five, yeah? Prolly a better deal than being a copper, anyways. You should thank me.”

Alex just gapes at him for a few long seconds, but Miles has turned back to his magazine. 

“Well what the fuck are you ‘interested’ in, then?” Alex mutters, picking up his now lukewarm tea. 

“Wot?”

“You said you’re interested. I’m not very interesting.”

“First of all, that’s exactly what an interesting person would say,” Miles lilts jovially. “Second, I’m not just interested in _you_.”

He doesn’t say anything more, but Alex can take a hint. Regardless of whether he actually has any interest in Alex, he’s mostly concerned with what Alex can do for him. It’s a manipulation, Alex is sure. A method of keeping an eye on MI5 in one of the more primal ways. A possible escape if things turn sticky. Alex is aware he’s being manipulated, aware that he’ll need to resist it, and yet he’s still here. 

And he still can’t fathom why. 

“Why are you here, Miles?” Alex sighs, after a while. “In England. You should know better. We’ve been looking for you for a long time. I have, at least.”

Miles doesn’t respond immediately, setting down his magazine demurely and smoothing the fabric of his jeans. He looks candidly at Alex for the first time ever. Or, perhaps not _ever_ \- maybe there was something sincere in the eye contact they made a decade ago over the barrel of a gun, in the split second between Alex’s resolution to stand his ground and Miles’s resolution to let nothing stand in his way. 

Miles purses his lips. “That’s a long story.”

“I have time,” Alex quips, resting his elbows on the table separating them. 

Miles just shakes his head with a laugh. “You’re insane.”

“Eh, you’re one to fucking talk,” Alex retorts, fighting the smile from lips and the laugh from his throat. Miles can see it, though, he’s sure - he sends Alex a knowing smirk that isn’t quite friendly before going back to his magazine. Alex takes the opportunity to inspect him in the morning light, in a way he might once have been ashamed of. The sun lightens Miles’s hair, turns his eyes a brighter shade of brown. It leaves a bad taste in Alex’s mouth that he doesn’t try to swallow down. 

At noon, he acknowledges that this has gone too far. He pulls on last night’s clothes in full, unsure why Miles protests his departure.

“Tinna and Sully won’t be back ‘til tomorrow,” he implores, only to be met with Alex’s perplexed eyebrow raise. 

“I’ve got a meeting,” Alex mutters. And it’s true - he’s got an afternoon check in with Ford, and he’s done none of the necessary surveillance paperwork in the last week. It feels especially odd to think about going into work now. Terrifying, if he’s honest. He already knows he won’t tell a soul about the last twenty-four hours, for the sake of his job and his dignity. This will be an abhorration, he decides. It’ll end here and he’ll go back to trying to cage Miles Kane from a distance. None of it has to matter. He just has to keep his mouth shut and give nothing away. 

Miles doesn’t request secrecy. He seems entirely certain he has nothing at risk, evident in the way he casually leans against the tiled wall while Alex straightens his hair in the bathroom mirror. 

“You can come around on Thursday, if you like,” Miles offers nonchalantly. “I’ll introduce you to me family.”

Alex turns around to meet his gaze head on. “The fuck are you playing at, mate?”

“We’ve already established this, Alex,” Miles sighs. “You entertain me. I’d like to see you again. And who knows, right? Maybe I’ll slip up and confess me dastardly plans so you can arrest me right on the spot.”

“Fuck off,” Alex breathes, making swiftly for the front door. He doesn’t look back when he slams it behind him, but his eyes do find the peeling threshold, and once again he can’t get the image out of his head until long after he’s back amongst the heat and foreboding of the city. 

m m m

Matt takes one look at him and knows something is off, but he mistakes it to be strictly Jamie’s doing - which isn’t entirely untrue, but rebound-fucking his arch enemy might have something to do with it too. The combination of the two, however, has Alex far from his usual self. 

He’d managed to fit in a shower and had slipped into some clean, relatively presentable clothes afterwards before heading to the Thames House. Ford’s expression is enough to tell him that these basic functions do not make up for the last week of subpar communication. 

“You’re not a free agent, you realize,” Ford scolds impatiently. “I’ve given you a lot of freedom on this on the condition that I remain in the loop. We can’t fuck around when we’ve got everyone watching us, yeah? Six is already unimpressed with our lack of results and are battling to snag the case back to their jurisdiction.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Alex acquiesces quickly, kneading the the bridge of his nose. 

“You’re being unprofessional.”

_You haven’t the faintest idea,_ Alex thinks, with a sardonic darkness that almost makes him smile. But he constructs his face into something vaguely recognizable when he says, “I don’t think surveillance is doing any good.”

“No?”

“He knows he’s being watched.” Alex hesitates, then adds quickly, “I mean, he must. He won’t slip up.”

“Than what do you propose?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to do a little better than that, mate,” Ford snaps. Judging by his trashcan, he’s had a few too many cups of coffee, which can only mean that half of Queen and Country has been breathing down his neck today already. Alex, feeling acutely aware of his own incompetence, lets some measure of sympathy show despite the rebuke. 

“I’ve established his patterns,” Alex offers. “I can keep an eye on him remotely well enough via CCTV while we work out a new angle. Alexa told me that sometimes we lose him when he goes into London - that’s got to be worth exploring. I’ve got nothing in Beckenham, if I’m honest.”

He’s aware of the irony in both halves of the last sentence. 

Ford eyes him unhappily, but relents. “Fine. Not like anyone else has ideas.”

Back in his cubicle, Matt is waiting for him, and he doesn’t bother with a greeting before blurting out, “Did you just voluntarily give up Kane surveillance?”

“What’s it to you?” Alex retorts tiredly, yearning for a drink or a smoke or maybe a heavy blow to the head. He settles heavily into his desk chair, running a limp hand through his hair.

“You’re not in your right mind.” Matt folds his arms over his chest obstinately. “And I’m tired of fucking babysitting you. Ever since Kane showed up again, and now this thing with Jamie...you’re driving me up the fucking wall.”

“Then why are you still here?” Alex sighs in exasperation, avoiding eye contact by focusing his gaze on Matt’s belt buckle. “If I’m such a fucking burden to you then why don’t you just shit off?”

Matt’s arms drop, and he takes an imploring step forward. “Alex--”

“Not now, please,” he breathes, turning away from the other man. “S’nothing personal, sorry. Just not now.”

Alex senses Matt’s dissatisfaction with his explanation, but after a moment he murmurs a placating “alright,” and departs. Alex still isn’t sure if he really wants him gone, but the longer he stays in Matt’s presence the more likely he is to spill his secrets in the way that only Matt can inspire. 

And he doesn’t quite believe even Matt can forgive him for the mess he’s gotten himself into this time. 

m m m

Alex settles uncomfortably into a week of forgetting, and of paperwork. Going into the office helps - if Miles remains on paper and on CCTV alone, Alex can let him exist as an abstract concept. He doesn’t have to dwell on the fingertip shaped bruises on his hip bones or the memory of morning light hitting a pair of brown eyes. 

He attempts to avoid Matt, and feels the loss despite being wrapped in his own madness. He misses his confidante, his unequivocal ally; but he can’t face him in this state. He retreats beneath the pile of paperwork he’d thought so little of when he still spent his days in Beckenham. Few bother to approach him, perhaps sensing he’s only capable of monosyllabic utterances. According to CCTV, Miles’s routine remains unchanged. He takes his family out to eat, and to the cinema once, and then to his usual hardware store the next morning - he buys white paint, and Alex imagines him bent over his front stoop, painting over the peeling threshold. 

On Wednesday, Alexa appears. 

He has the disadvantage of being caught off guard by her arrival - he’s gotten in the habit of leaving late, in the interest of avoiding interaction, but today she’s waiting for him as soon as he steps into the elevator. 

“Evening,” she says, with a nonchalance he’s sure is forced. He knows her well enough to be intimately familiar with her tells. 

“What do you want, Lex?” he asks, pretending to be half absorbed by his mobile. 

“Heard you’re no longer staking out Kane’s place.” She shrugs. “You’re still on the case, right?”

“Of course,” he snaps. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I just don’t see why you’d be taking a step back.” She brushes some imaginary dust off her bicep just as the doors open onto the lobby. “Unless something happened--”

“Nothing happened. I’m just trying to get a new angle,” Alex mutters, making for the door. But her legs are as long as his, if not longer, and he can’t shake her loose. She matches him step for step as they cross the parking lot.

“And how’s that going?”

“Fine.”

“You spend a decade unable to talk about anything besides Miles Kane and now all you’ve got is ‘fine’?” she says, and though she’s almost smiling her tone falls short of lightheartedness. 

“I’m just busy, yeah?” 

They reach her compact Mazda before Alex can break off towards the stairs to the underground. She pauses before unlocking the car, fixing him with a look. “Are you alright?”

“I’m _fine_ , Alexa,” he breathes impatiently, and almost believes his own vehemence. He entertains, briefly, the notion of telling her the truth about what’s happened between him and Miles. After all, there was a time when she was the only one he trusted with every secret, with every urge and every repulsion. When they had each other, and it was enough, before Jamie became more than just a passing thought in his subconscious, opportunistic mind. But he swallows the rising confession quickly. No one will understand what persuaded him to betray Queen and Country, to possibly sabotage his own investigation. He himself doesn’t even understand. 

No one will cut him any slack. And they shouldn’t. 

“Good night,” he adds, turning briskly on his heel until his feet are aimed toward the stairwell. 

“Night, Al,” he hears her call after him. He doesn’t look back. 

m m m

A dream. But just barely. 

He’s at work, the office dark, darker than it’s ever been. Miles Kane’s blurry figure is on the CCTV feed in front of him. He pauses, looks up at the camera, like he knows he’s being observed. Like he knows it’s _Alex_ doing the observing. 

Though the heat wave laying its oppressive hand over the city has finally broken, Alex wakes up in a sweat. 

m m m

Thursday night rolls around, and his resolve is strong, strong enough that he almost convinces himself that he’s forgotten Miles’s invitation completely. That it has no significance to him whatsoever. He settles into a microwaveable dinner in front of some mindless telly and revels in his own ignorance. 

That is, until the mobile vibrates in his back pocket.

In the flurry of instinctual activity to put down his food and shift until he can reach for the phone, he doesn’t think to ignore it. He doesn’t even consider who it might be. So when the name above the text comes up as _Cookie_ , he doesn’t react fast enough to avert his eyes. 

_We’re leaving tomorrow morning,_ it says simply. It’s neither an invitation or a deterrent, but rather it rings with a tone that’s pointedly matter-of-fact. Alex feels himself shrivel. There’s no way Jamie expects a reply - as always, there’s nothing to be said. Alex stares at the words until they blur beneath unfocused eyes, until the phone slips from his fingers onto the coffee table in front of him. 

It’s only once he’s in Beckenham that he realizes he’s left it behind. 

The Audi is parked crookedly in the drive, and all the downstairs lights are on, despite the fact that the sun has yet to fully disappear beneath the neat row of houses behind him. Alex has the cab deposit him on the edge of the concrete driveway, and as he ambles toward the house he becomes aware of the door cracking open, a figure silhouetted by yellow light approaching him. 

“You came,” Miles says, and there’s a distinct note of breathy delight in his voice. 

Alex’s eyes lift from the ground, his expression vacant. 

“Alright, la?” Miles’s tone is a little more subdued, but the warmth hasn’t left his eyes. 

Alex nods stiffly. 

“Come inside,” Miles prods, one hand reaching out to trace down Alex’s forearm and brush lightly over the palm of his hand. “I’ve just finished dinner.”

He lets himself be lead inside, guided by the pristine white of the back of Miles’s polo in front of him. Yellow light leaks out over the the hedges planted beneath each street facing window, and once Alex’s eyes adjust the rest of the neighborhood suddenly seems pitch in comparison. 

The night is cooler than it’s been since the beginning of summer, but inside the house the proximity of warm bodies and the whir of appliances and electronics return the heat and closeness Alex has spent August accustomed to. In the dated, off white kitchen, Tinna Bergs is spooning out a succotash of lima beans and corn onto a child-sized plate for the boy waiting at her knees. From what MI5 can extrapolate, Sully Kane has recently started school in the suburbs and seems to receive no special treatment that would indicate the power of his father. Now, he appears as unremarkable as any five year old, fair hair tousled and clothes grass stained from the usual activities of a sunny afternoon. A pair of glasses sits crookedly on his small face as he looks questioningly at the man accompanying his father. 

Tinna catches the boy’s line of sight and immediately tenses; the way her eyes swivel toward the dinner table in the center of the room suggests there is a firearm hidden somewhere beneath its surface, Alex reckons. Instinct has him deciding to not risk any sudden moves around the woman, even as Miles’s face splits into a comforting smile. 

“Tinna, Sully, this is Alex,” Miles explains cheerfully. “He’s harmless.”

Alex nearly coughs in indignation, but no sound makes it out of his throat. 

Tinna’s eyes narrow, though her shoulders muscles seem to unclench slightly. Sully takes the plate carefully out of her hand and greets Alex with an indifferent, “hi,” that’s more directed toward his food. He crawls into one of the wooden chairs around the table, short legs swaying over the edge as he tucks in. Tinna settles in beside him, but only picks at her food, her worries clearly not dissuaded. Strangers in the household are unlikely to leave any hired protection fully at ease, Alex figures. Her auburn hair hides her expression, but he imagines it’s carefully impassive. 

Miles hands him a plate - succotash, potatoes, and roast chicken. He thinks of his half finished instant noodles, left to turn cold back at his flat, and sucks in a humiliatingly eager breath as the meal commences in silence. Alex can’t get a read if it’s a tense quiet or not, considering both Sully and Miles seem entirely unconcerned by their guest. Alex, for his part, eats politely and tries not to ask for seconds, even though it’s the first real meal he’s had in a long while. Embarrassingly long, for someone of his age. 

Miles is first to break the silence, tone conversational. “Tinna, I’m thinking of making a proper roast for Sunday. Or is it still too hot, do you think?”

Her lips purse. She says quietly, accent lilting, “Might still be a bit warm.”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a coupla weeks,” he acquiesces. His eyes swivel to Sully. “How’s your day, la?”

“Fine,” says Sully, shrugging, but allows something of a smug smile to cross his face at the next sentence. “Liam tried to steal my football at lunch but I got it back.”

“D’you still like your teacher and all?”

“She’s alright. She didn’t let me shove Liam, though,” Sully replies, turning forlorn. 

Miles snorts, throwing a humored sideways glance at Alex, who’s finished his meal and is now inspecting the scene around him. The lightness of the conversation is so unforced it throws him; not for the first time, he’s unsure what to make of the domesticity around him. His eyes, briefly, land on the left index fingers of both adults - both are ringless, as he’d already figured they would be. 

His eyes eventually land on Sully, whose light hair resembles neither of his parents’. His eyes, too, seem not to pay homage to either Tinna’s or Miles’s in shape or shade. Again, questions flood Alex, as they have a tendency to do these days. He realizes he hasn’t spoken at all since arriving in Beckenham tonight.

“This is delicious,” Alex murmurs, motioning toward his plate. As the food warms his stomach he becomes increasingly sure this isn’t a dream, a realization that is met with a mixed response by his conscious mind. 

“I’m glad you like it.” Miles beams, continuing in what appears to be his quest to baffle Alex completely. Miles’s eyes wander to his son, and he adds lightly, “Eat your beans, Sul.”

The meal winds to a close, and as Alex rises from his seat he perceives a rapid, loaded glance exchanged between Tinna and Miles. In the next second, Tinna has taken Alex’s plate and enlisted Sully to assist her with the dishes. Before Alex can object, thinking his mother would be ashamed, Miles has lead him toward the living room across the hall. He settles into an armchair and motions Alex toward the settee. 

Alex, however, remains standing. 

“Is Sully…?”

Miles blinks, undeterred by his tactlessness. “Is Sully what?”

“Is he your son?”

Miles’s eyes dart toward the floor. His reply is a monotonous, “He is now.”

From somewhere in the room, a phone chirps. Miles pulls his mobile out of the front pocket of his jeans, sending an apologetic glance at the other man. His eyes lock onto the incoming contact, and even in the low light Alex can see the color drain from his face. 

Miles is on his feet in seconds. His voice takes on a low, urgent tone Alex has never heard before. “Tinna,” he says firmly, and she appears on the threshold, eyes alert and hands soapy. “He’s coming.”

She leaps into action, and in the moment Alex takes to watch her disappear up the stairs, Miles has crossed the room to his side. “I need you out of sight,” he commands, and it’s effective; his words allow no room for argument. 

Still, Alex goes for it anyway. “What? Why?”

“He’s coming,” Miles repeats, as though that should be persuasion enough. He shepherds Alex forward, out of the room, to where Sully is waiting in the hallway. The boy’s putting on a child’s approximation of a brave face, but he’s clearly ruffled by his parents’ reaction. 

Tinna comes down the stairs, having changed into a knee length skirt. Alex would hazard a guess it better accommodates the handgun strapped to her inner thigh than trousers would. She’s changed her blouse, too, to make the outfit as a whole seem more natural, and is still pulling her hair out of her collar as she reenters the room. “Second floor?” she inquires, motioning toward Sully and Alex. 

Miles bites his bottom lip before nodding. “Yep.” His voice, though perfectly authoritative, is undermined by the barely perceptible shake in his hands as he herds the two in question upwards. Before he can protest, or at least make a proper break for it, Alex is cornered in the bedroom he and Miles had occupied only a few days before. 

“What the hell is going on, Kane?” Alex finally gets out, as Sully climbs up to sit on the edge of the bed. 

Miles hardly acknowledges his question. “Stay quiet. If he doesn’t hear anything I doubt he’ll bother to come up.” His eyes dart toward the window onto the street every few seconds, as if headlights are imminent. He kisses Sully briskly on top of the head and makes for the door. 

“Who? If who doesn’t hear anything?” Alex pursues, the panic in Miles infecting him as well. 

Miles pauses, hand on the door knob. “O’Malley,” he breathes, like the very name is taboo. “Nick O’Malley.”

He meets Alex’s gaze once more, reaches out to quickly give his hand an ambiguous squeeze. Without another word, Miles closes the bedroom door behind him and disappears in the direction of the stairs.


	4. Part 4 - The Cadaverous Mob

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Things coalesce oddly._

**Part 4 - The Cadaverous Mob**

 

Sitting in the circle of light created by the small bedside lamp, Alex reflects on the significance of Nicholas O’Malley. 

The name is not foreign. The real estate magnate has his own file at Five, though it’s largely inactive. A few years back O’Malley had seemed to gain power and money at an alarming rate, but the subsequent clandestine investigation by Five hadn’t turned anything up. Suspicions weren’t erased, but a lack of leads had the case abandoned indefinitely. Since then, his business has grown, and Alex is vaguely aware that he owns several high profile properties across the London area. Still, this doesn’t account for how his name has been whispered in so many questionable circles, and what he possibly has to do with Miles Kane. 

Or why he seems to inspire such fear. 

Sully’s legs dangle over the side of the bed beside Alex, the boy’s brow furrowed. He doesn’t seem particularly surprised by this turn of events; evidently, this isn’t the first time this has come about. His father’s fear, though, is certainly not lost on him - Sully appears concerned, at least, if not afraid. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” Alex ventures, giving him a cautious look. 

Sully frowns. “It’s one of daddy’s business meetings.”

“Oh?” Alex’s eyebrows raise. “How long do they usually last?”

“A long time.” Sully shrugs. “I can’t leave the room ‘til it’s over, even if it’s past my bedtime sometimes.”

Alex hums out a response, mind whirring. A moment passes, and still the street outside is dark and silent. Alex asks benignly, “Sully, where did you live before you came here?”

Sully eyes him for a moment, like he’s not sure he wants to respond. Finally, he murmurs, “Vienna.”

“With your mum and dad?”

He nods. 

“Did you always live there?”

Sully nods again, but pauses before adding, “Sometimes daddy had to leave for his job.”

Alex doesn’t get a chance to ask another question, though, before he hears the sound of a slowing engine, and headlights shine through the windows. He follows Sully’s example, and makes no sound. Afraid of the noise his footfalls might make, he resists the urge to cross the room and try to get a look at O’Malley before he enters the house. From beneath them, there comes the sound of the door opening, and of Miles’s muffled but jovial greeting. Alex can’t hear the specific words, but the tone is enough to indicate that O’Malley’s response is considerably more reserved. The resulting dialogue is too low for Alex to make out. Eventually, he gives up, and falls back against the summery quilt laid over the bed. Sully slips quietly to the floor and pulls out a shoebox full of crayons, managing to occupy himself with a remarkable maturity. 

Alex isn’t really in the habit of trying to predict the future anymore, or his own behavior, but this is definitely not how he expected this evening to go. Or any evening, for that matter. He wonders if it’s too late to slip out a window and run away from all this. He wonders if he wants to. 

From the direction of the voices, Alex suspects the meeting takes place in the kitchen, around the table he’d been eating at not so long ago. It’s not until half ten that there comes the sound of movement and sliding chairs. From the volume of the footsteps, Alex can assume O’Malley has not come alone. He catches what turns out to be a tone of finality in Miles’s voice, and this is affirmed by the click of the door opening and closing once again. A few moments later, headlights turn on, and the thudding growl of an eight cylinder engine roars away. 

Tinna’s feet pad up the stairs a good five minutes after O’Malley has disappeared down the road. Sully’s head pops up when the door cracks open, and Alex sits up slowly from where he’s sprawled on the bed. Her expression is as stony as ever - he gets the impression she isn’t rattled easily - but the way she embraces Sully, with something almost shaky in her grasp, suggests a crack in the granite. With her arms still around the boy, her eyes dart toward Alex, gaze ambiguous. She’s as unsure what to do with him as he is with himself. Miles seems to be the only one unconcerned by his presence. 

“Come downstairs,” she murmurs, probably to Sully. Alex follows anyway. 

Back in the kitchen, Miles is slumped over the head of the table, looking pale and wan. It’s the first time Alex has seen him as anything less than prim and assured. He slides his hands over his face with a blank stare at the joint between the wall and the floor. 

“Mi,” says Tinna softly, and he seems to snap to attention; he blinks a few times and straightens slightly in his seat. 

“Alright,” he mutters, as though reassuring himself. “Yeah, it’s alright.”

The set of his lips suggests it definitively _isn’t._

Miles stands, his movements subdued and dull. Sully approaches cautiously and this seems to inspire Miles to regain his composure; he leans down and sweeps the boy up into his arms. “Ready for bed, la?” he asks, and paints on a grin that’s almost convincing. 

Sully nods and lays his blonde head exhaustedly against Miles’s shoulder, small arms encircling his neck. He sends Alex only the briefest of looks before heading toward the stairs, and then he’s left with just Tinna’s shameless stare for company. 

Alex takes a risk. “What was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” she replies obstinately, eyes turning toward the dishes residing in the sink. 

“The meeting and all that. What’ve you got to do with Nick O’Malley?”

She shrugs. “You’re the government agent. Shouldn’t you be figuring that out yourself?”

“I’m trying to.”

She brushes past him and picks up a sponge. He joins her at the faucet, and she makes no objection when he begins to dry each rinsed dish she hands him. 

“Are you private security?” he asks innocently, when the silence begins to stretch. 

“I have been.” She doesn’t look up from her task.

“How did you end up here?”

At this, she sends him a quick, sharp glance. “Miles is a friend.”

“And Sully…?”

Her only response is an equivocal grunt. 

Miles appears, then, before Alex can continue in his line of questioning. The inquisition comes naturally; but Miles’s arrival twinges something like guilt inside him and has him frowning at its origin. 

“He’s asleep?” Tinna asks.

“Nearly,” Miles murmurs, running a hand through already thoroughly mussed hair. The creases around his eyes, usually so joyous, have turned down in exhaustion. Alex leans back against the counter in an attempt to blend in with the wall. 

“That could’ve gone worse,” Tinna offers, but it’s clear that buoyancy is not her natural disposition. 

“Oh, I’m sure it will.” Miles smiles ruefully. “Eventually.”

Simultaneously, their eyes dart cautiously to Alex, and the conversation turns mundane once again. Alex tries not to look noticeably disappointed - if he can pass all this off as simply in the interest of the deep surveillance, than it doesn’t seem nearly as traitorous. 

Tinna sets down the last dish and angles her feet toward the stairs without another word. She, at least, seems unconcerned by how the rest of the evening goes; Alex, on the other hand, has been growing increasingly unnerved. He looks to his feet in an attempt to avoid Miles’s gaze. 

“Sorry for all that,” Miles says smoothly. “Business is business.”

“Are you gonna tell me what that was about?” Alex asks. “What’ve you got to do with Nick O’Malley?”

Miles smiles slyly, turning toward the living room and shaking his head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but...well, I don’t trust you.”

“Then why am I here?” Alex pursues him into the next room, eyes widening in indignation. 

“Why indeed.” Miles eyes him shrewdly, facing him once they stand in front the settee. He traverses the two steps between them and, before Alex can think or feel, their lips are moving together and he’s trapped beneath Miles’s gentle hands. 

“What are you doing?” Alex pulls away, briefly, to gasp, but keeps an unabashed hand on Miles’s hip. Truthfully, he’s not sure what he’s precisely asking - Miles, though, has an answer regardless. 

“Stress relief,” he breathes, and closes the distance between them once again.

Alex’s fingers come up to grasp at the back of the other man’s shirt to yank him closer. Miles chuckles lightly but doesn’t halt the motion of his lips. Alex feels himself turn vicious, and desperate, as he becomes aware of the fact that he isn’t going to pull away like he should. That _this_ is apparently what he’s inclined to do these days. 

So when Miles pushes him back against the settee, he doesn’t meet any resistance. 

m m m

Monday morning and he finds himself hiding from familiar faces and heading for the basement. Ford’s privileged him with high level clearance while he’s on the Kane case so he has no trouble getting into the records marked classified or higher. Technically, he could access them from his desk, but his login would give him away in any future investigation. It seems easier to cover his tracks if he procures himself Nick O’Malley’s paper file instead. 

Among the dusty stacks of forgotten and reformed criminals he feels surprisingly at ease - the silence of it is so in contrast to Matt’s eyes on his back, or Ford’s ever present expectation, or Miles Kane in general. He spends more time searching for the file than he needs to in the close twilight of the basement rooms. 

When he finds what he’s looking for, though, he takes care to find a corner just out of the security camera’s line of sight and settles in to read. Nicholas O’Malley, he can’t help but notice, bears some eerie similarities to he himself - born in Sheffield, only a few months before Alex, played in garage bands in high school before settling into something real. It’s there that the split occurred - Nick started buying property and getting into things that put him on national watchlists, whereas Alex joined the local police and got himself shot by a budding arms dealer. 

O’Malley’s record shows tenuous connections to a few arms dealers similar in reputation to Miles, and a few other minor illegal businesses on the side, all of them only allegedly having anything to do with Nick. Alex flips through the timeline of the man’s life until something catches his eye: not coincidentally, he’s sure, O’Malley seems to own a swath of properties across Beckenham. 

Bent over the neatly worded rows, he doesn’t hear the telltales signs of human life until they’re nearly on top of him. 

“What are you doing down here?” Alexa asks, from somewhere directly above his left shoulder. He’s ashamed of the strength of the jolt her sudden appearance sends through him. 

“It’s nowt,” he mutters, snapping the file closed. “M’filing.”

“I know you’re lying ‘cause I can hardly understand you.”

“What are you doing down here, then?” He tucks the file beneath one arm and stands abruptly. “Do you have clearance?”

“Obviously,” she snorts, holding up a stack of manilla folders. “McCann usually does my filing but he’s out this week.”

“Oh.” Alex stays immobile beneath her gaze for as long as he dares before declaring, “I’d better get back upstairs.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes narrow, roaming his expression. He turns on his heel and heads for the lift with the distinct impression that something has shifted, and he’s floundering. No longer is she simply concerned over the mental health of an ex-lover; now, she’s suspicious of something else. Just as she should be. 

m m m

Miles is wearing a pair of striped linen shorts, cut a few inches above the knee, below a light cotton button up. He sits in a low lawn chair, shite Sunday newspaper beneath his hands, legs crossed demurely. If it weren’t for the nine hundred quid sunglasses perched on his nose and his oddly waif-thin figure, he’d look just like any other suburban father. If Alex tilts his head and squints, in fact, there’s no difference at all. 

Though the August heat wave has subsided, the sun is still hot and unabated during the day. At night, the slightest hint of an autumn breeze erupts, and, in usual fashion, leaves Alex wondering if he’s properly enjoyed these last few months without a coat or a heating bill.

In truth, they’ve been unbearable. 

In the backyard stretching out before them, Sully and a troop of neighborhood boys in shorts run through a sprinkler, moving in endless circles under the immemorial sun. From Alex’s vantage point, he can see smiles and tanned skin, hear shouts and laughter and the thud of feet on earth. Oblivious and far away. He turns to Miles, leaning over the arm of his chair. “So, I looked up Nick O’Malley last week.”

“Were you enlightened?” Miles smirks slightly, eyes still fixed, as far as Alex can tell, on the words in front of him. 

“Not particularly.”

Miles snorts, but the twitch of his fingers suggests that it’s all a little less lighthearted than he’s trying to paint it as. Eventually, he lifts his eyes from the paper, and pulls the cigarette from the corner of his mouth to inspect. “You know, a helicopter mum bitched at me about these the other day,” he murmurs, watching the smoke rise off the end. “Never thought I’d end up in _that_ situation.”

He hands the cigarette to Alex, expression still obfuscated by sunglasses. Alex takes it without thinking, places it between his lips. His first inhale is directed at the sun. 

Inside, Tinna has the landline between her ear and her shoulder, speaking rapid Icelandic while she expertly paints a clear coat of varnish over short, efficient nails. She’s dressed in a Them Crooked Vultures shirt and jean shorts and, as usual, looks more like a Topshop model than a one woman security force. Alex nods at her as he comes into the kitchen and she fixes him with her usual impassively vigilant stare, as he puts out his cigarette and locates a few ice cubes for a gin and tonic. 

Lately, he’s been ending up in Beckenham less because he’s actually finding any investigative use for it and more because a pair of Jamie’s socks are still screaming at him back in his flat. They’re lying over the arm of his settee and he can’t seem to live with them or throw them out. The stalemate has been gaining volume in the weeks since Jamie’s departure and the longer he spends at home the more deafening it becomes. 

Work, too, is suffocating, but the weekends are still his own, and apparently nowadays he’s glad to use them to ruin his own life. 

But there is something appealing in the domesticity of it all - Tinna and Miles are unhurried people, and the soft patterns of their house reflect that. There is both silence and companionable noise; both the presence of others and seclusion when necessary. And though he’s sure Miles is manipulating him in some way, waiting for him to be useful, Alex can’t say he doesn’t enjoy being used, at least in part. There’s something exhilaratingly warm in all of it that he can’t refuse. 

Miles comes in around five looking sun kissed, his brow furrowed until he can lay eyes on Tinna. “Do we have a plan for Sully tonight?” he asks. 

“He’s heading to Daisy’s for the evening.”

“Good. I think this one’s going to run late.”

“What’s going to run late?” Alex asks. Miles’s eyes scan the room until they land on Alex’s expectant posture. He raises an eyebrow. 

“You’re the expert on Nick O’Malley,” Miles sighs out. “You tell me.”

He turns on his heel, then, and heads toward the stairs, rubbing worriedly at the sharp points of his wrists as he goes. Alarmingly, Alex is beginning to recognize the man’s nervous tics. He imagines that the moment he starts to want to alleviate them will be when he knows he’s truly in trouble. 

He rubs absently at the echo of a dull throb in his shoulder and looks to Tinna for explanation. 

“What’d you think he does when he goes into the city?” she says, clearly unimpressed with his deductive skills. 

“How does he get off the CCTV feed?”

“O’Malley,” she replies simply, her shrug almost convincingly indifferent. She gets up from her seat and heads in the same direction Miles has. Alex becomes, suddenly, aware of the charge in the air - they’re tense, and it’s not because of his presence. 

Alex putters around the kitchen while he hears them move about upstairs; the sun is just beginning to set by the time they come down again. Miles has changed into a dapper gray suit, chelsea boots sticking out of thin, carefully tailored pant legs. Tinna wears slacks and a blazer loose enough for an underarm holster. She puts her hair up and goes from Topshop model to sentry in seconds. 

Daisy from across the street arrives and the gaggle of boys in the backyard changes bases. Miles pulls the keys to the Audi out of the drawer by the door and only then seems to become properly aware of Alex, standing awkwardly in the suddenly empty house.

“You can stay if you like,” he offers distractedly, glancing at his watch. “Dunno when we’ll be back.” His eyes swerve around the room. “I imagine you’ll feel inclined to snoop; I can assure you that you’ll find nothing damning enough for your purposes,” he adds, allowing a brief, crooked smile. “But I don’t suppose that’ll stop you.”

With that, he lets Tinna shepherd him out. The Audi pulls away and Alex, abruptly, is alone. 

m m m

It’s a testament to how well Miles has learned his habits that within the hour Alex finds himself knee deep in an upstairs closet, searching through the usual detritus of suburban life in search of something abstract. So far he’s come across nothing but old tennis rackets and winter coats, and truthfully at this point he doesn’t expect to find much else - if betraying Queen and Country for afternoons and nights in Beckenham has taught him anything, it’s that Miles Kane has a right to be cocky. He’s covered his tracks well, just like in the old days, when no one could definitively pin either the shootings or the bank robberies on him before he was out of the UK. And yet, Alex can’t quite bring himself to be frustrated by the fruitless search - finding something would change everything, and he’s not sure that’s what he wants. Right now, things are almost manageable; to upset the status quo would surely mean the end of any hope of that. It would be a turn towards something even more unfathomable. 

So he gives up. He makes himself an avocado and cheese sandwich and settles into watch shite reality telly for the evening. Eventually, he nods off on the settee, quiff hopelessly mussed and crumbs all down his front. It’s remarkably like what he’d probably be doing if he was home in his flat, but the notion of Miles and Tinna returning at a future hour somehow has him feeling less pitiful than he normally would. He falls asleep to the droning of the telly and the hum of the washer in the other room. 

m m m

Sometime after midnight, it’s not the sound of a car in the drive that wakes him, but a hand slipping into his. Alex’s lips form the word _Jamie_ before his eyes open, but no sound escapes. 

His gaze focuses in on Miles a few moments later, sitting on the edge of the settee with something soft and fond in his eyes that Alex doesn’t quite know what to make of. The room is dark, but a bright advert comes on and washes everything in blue light for the second it takes for Alex to see the darkness marring Miles’s left cheek bone and the blood on his collar. 

Alex sits up immediately. “What happened to you?”

Miles bobs his head indeterminately, eyes lowered. He uses the hand not intertwined with Alex’s to pluck a crumb off the Sheffielder’s t-shirt. The hall light switches on and he sees Tinna walk briskly past the door, whipping off her jacket as she goes. Her posture is enough to glean she’s angry, and Alex is unsurprised when he catches a glimpse of her raw knuckles a moment later. 

“You owe me an explanation,” Alex says, eyes turning back on Miles. 

His words seem to strike a dissonant chord. The look Miles comes back with is nothing short of venomous, all traces of the fondness of a minute ago disapparated. “I don’t owe you shite,” he snaps. He rubs irritably at the bruise on the side of his face and pulls his hand out of Alex’s sharply. “I don’t owe anyone anything.”

“You shot me,” Alex retorts. “You think that’s forgiven?”

“If it’s not, then why are you here?” Miles stands jaggedly, scowl fixed on the wall. He shakes his head resignedly a moment later, letting out a huff. “I don’t care,” he mutters, and what exactly this statement is directed at is unclear. He turns on his heel and pads efficiently out of the room before Alex can formulate a response. 

Tinna, in the hallway, watches Miles stomp off toward the back door and turns an accusatory glare on Alex. When he does nothing but make challenging eye contact in response, she comes in and collapses on the settee near his feet without word, gaze on the telly. Alex watches her a moment longer to see if she’ll reproach him, or strangle him, but all she does is massage her bruised knuckles and become absorbed by _Underage and Pregnant._

“What happened?” Alex mutters finally. In the flickering, artificial light of the television, he sees Tinna’s jaw tense. 

“Nothing that wasn’t inevitable,” she grits out a moment later, without looking away from the show. When she offers nothing more, he takes the hint and rises to his feet. 

Maybe it’s dangerous, or an overstepping of whatever blurry boundaries already established, but regardless his feet carry him out the door into the backyard before he can rethink what little planning he’s done. Miles is sitting where he had been earlier in the day; the pair of lawn chairs now awash in the artificiality of suburban night instead sunlight. He’s engaged in some therapeutic smoking and doesn’t seem to notice Alex until he sits gingerly down beside him. And, even then, Miles only eyes him sideways instead of fully turning his head. 

Words gather on the tip of Alex’s tongue but at the last moment he abandons them, and plops heavily back against his seat. As is the trend these days, he’s baffled, by his own actions and by those of others. Miles blows an immaculate smoke ring and maintains the silence for as long as he can. 

Which, predictably, isn’t very long. 

“I dunno what I’m doing with you,” he murmurs eventually, eyes tired and far away.

“Me neither.”

“This isn’t how I expected it to be.”

“What _did_ you expect it to be?”

The whites of Miles’s eyes are fluorescent in the gloom. He shrugs. “I sensed your fixation with me. Figured you’d be useful, at some point.”

“So you were manipulating me.” Alex can’t muster any surprise. 

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Alex gives an indifferent eyebrow lift. “Are you still manipulating me?”

“I dunno. It’s all muddled now.” He frowns. “I like you.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Alex almost laughs. “We’re not exactly compatible.”

“Well, not in the conventional sense.”

“But you won’t tell me anything.”

“I think it’s fairly obvious why.” Miles waves vaguely at him, as if indicating simply the nature of his entire existence. 

“You think I’ll turn you in. Even though you like me.”

Miles eyes him shrewdly. “You’ll try. But I’d reckon O’Malley gets to me first.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Would you believe it if I told you almost nothing is in my control?” he retorts, and a certain bitter edge slips in. He breathes in another lungful of smoke sharply. “Not anymore.”

Alex just stares at him for a moment, then shrugs frankly. “Maybe you deserve it.”

Miles’s eyes narrow. “How do you figure?”

“You _have_ killed people. And sold weapons to terrorists and dictatorships and god knows who else.” Alex shrugs, raising an imploring hand. “You’re not exactly a fucking saint.”

Miles smiles venomously at him, and doesn’t deny a thing. “Come at me when you’ve got hard evidence of any of that.” 

As a silence begins to stretch between them, Alex becomes aware of something strange. The disconnect in Miles’s mind and life is finally showing itself in full. In the last ten years he seems to have morphed into a conglomeration of warring contradictions; the family man and the killer, and the victim and the perpetrator, the brutal and the tender. And he doesn’t seem to realize it, either - he’s frustrated by his position beneath O’Malley’s thumb and yet can’t seem to even contemplate that it’s his previous sins that might warrant such misfortune. The reports of his ruthless persecution of all competitors and those deemed disloyal stand in stark contrast to the care with which he inquires after Sully’s school day. The warm hands that grip Alex’s hips bear no resemblance to the ones that pulled a trigger and left him bloodthirsty and scarred all those years ago. 

Miles can’t seem to consolidate the two sides of himself and Alex, caught between them, can hardly manage the blurred line either. 

“Will you tell me about Sully, then?” Alex offers, sitting back and pulling out a cigarette. He hasn’t given up the wider line of questioning from before, but regarding Nick O’Malley he’s got the beginnings of a plan formulating. He takes a long drag. “Is he your son or not?”

Miles seems to evaluate whether to answer or not but then, through the haze of darkness, Alex watches him deflate. His fag has burned down, and he gives in. “Not biologically.”

“No?”

“Tinna and I have raised him for the majority of his life, though,” Miles says. “It’s the next closest thing.”

“Who are his real parents?”

“There was a woman named Suki whose boyfriend was in my employ some time ago,” Miles replies, voice even. “They both made some bad choices. I’m not responsible for what happened.”

Alex swallows down the bile in his throat. “So you took in their son because…?”

Miles just shrugs. He pauses for a moment, eyes latching onto the neighbor’s cat, lounging with a certain nocturnal flair on the back fence. he says finally, “He knows we’re not his parents but I don’t think he remembers his mum. Prolly for the better, if I’m honest.”

It’s only the slightest break in Miles’s disconnect, but Alex softens nonetheless. After a few moments, Miles rises, shoulders loosened somewhat. He halts above Alex, where in the half light their eyes connect, and in the next second he leans down to press his lips to Alex’s with an insistent, open warmth. 

“Come to bed,” he breathes, straightening, as if it’s a perfectly logical thing for Alex to do. The new normal, Alex muses, and follows him inside without another thought. 

m m m

He knows better than to ask Matt for help in this, or Alexa, so he enlists Alexa’s nearly incomprehensibly Welsh assistant to alert him whenever Miles disappears from CCTV. It’s midday on a Tuesday as he sits at a desk with a file in one hand and a sandwich in the other when McCann sends him the text he’s been waiting for - Miles Kane is in the city and he’s off the radar. 

His last known position puts him in Islington, and Alex is not at all surprised when a quick search informs him that his location is within a mile of several high class apartment blocks owned by a division of O’Malley’s empire. Before ten minutes have passed, Alex is behind the wheel and swerving into London traffic. 

Once he’s actually in Islington, his eyes searching for that familiar scratched Audi, it occurs to him that his plan is rather undeveloped. 

He parallel parks across the street, taking a moment to straighten his suit and quiff in the reflection off the driver’s side window. There’s a folding knife in the pocket over his breast, usually kept in his desk at the office for when he receives particularly well sealed envelopes. For the last few weeks it’s ended up in his jacket as the result of a previous fit of paranoia. Its weight is only a mild comfort now. 

The Audi is parked in front of number 72, so he skulks around the block looking for a back entrance. He’s operating on instinct now, though the thought briefly races through his mind that maybe he shouldn’t be embarking on this endeavor alone. But he’s reminded, then, of exactly how far he’s alienated himself from his friends and allies. He locked himself into a corner where he either dives in alone or not at all. Just as Miles has split himself into two barely connected factions, Alex has already created separate identities as well - the objective government agent and the compromised investigator, the solitary crusader and the cry for help, the lover and the man on a quest for vengeance. Jamie, also, lurks at the edges of his mind and maybe he, too, is a subject of a division; the man that was beneath Jamie’s hands is different than the one beneath Miles’s. 

After a few minutes of searching through bin-crowded alleyways he comes across what is likely the door to the back staircase of number 72. He reaches to try the doorknob and, coincidentally, this is the exact moment that he feels his arms pinned to his sides and a cloth pressed over his nose and mouth. He has a few seconds to struggle, to attempt to part his lips and scream, to recognize the smell overtaking his senses. And then everything is black, and in the absence of any other logical reaction, he embraces it.


	5. All Saints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If reason is priceless..._

**Part 5 - All Saints**  


Consciousness in all its glory takes its time returning to him, so it’s a good long while after his first whiff of wakefulness before he can extrapolate that he’s sitting on a hardwood floor, hands bound to a furniture piece behind him and eyes blindfolded. Voices are murmuring in his near vicinity, and he hears the creaking of chairs and the floor as the sources of the sound shift about in conversation. They don’t seem to notice him until he stretches his legs out in front of him, in an attempt to rid himself of the prickle of pins and needles. Almost immediately, footsteps approach him. 

“You’re not very good at your job, are you?” A low voice says. It sounds like home, Alex realizes. Not just Sheffield, but probably High Green. Hands reach around his head and soon the blindfold falls from his eyes. 

“Evidently not,” Alex replies, words slow and struggling, as he surveys the room. 

It’s the spacious front parlor of a flat, bathed in the gray light coming in from untinted, street facing windows. There are large, well-muscled men at all exits, careful to keep their shoes off the plush Persian rugs. In the corner of the room to his left, a baby grand piano occupies the space beneath the windows. Miles sits on the bench, and though his hands and feet are unrestrained, he looks thoroughly caged. Alex’s eyes search for his, but Miles quickly looks away. 

“And yes, we know who you are.”

Alex’s gaze swivels back toward the illustrious Nick O’Malley, dressed in a dark suit with fur lapels. He’s leaning over Alex’s position on the floor, dark curls falling into his face. The softness of his cheeks give off a faux innocence, but there’s an ever present smirk in his dark eyes, and his stocky frame is surrounded by a sense of restless impatience. He straightens when Alex looks up at him. 

“I can almost see the rationale...” His eyes give Alex a cold appraisal before he turns back to Miles with a smirk. “But the _real_ question is, who’s manipulating who?”

Miles’s jaw noticeably tenses from across the room, but he doesn’t look up from inspecting his own thighs. 

O’Malley takes a few steps back in order to get both of them simultaneously in his view. He addresses Alex when he says, “Well, I imagine you have some idea what’s going on here. Surely Miles has helpfully filled you in, under the impression that he could keep secrets from me.” He pauses with a snort. “Taken a bit of a tumble from glory, hasn’t he?”

“So he works for you now, yeah?” Alex asks, taking note of how Miles’s slender fingers have balled into fists. Alex, however, feels calm. His hands are tied to a settee and it’s entirely possible Nick O’Malley intends to execute him in the next few minutes, but he can’t help but be a little proud of himself for chiseling his first real crack in the mystery of the situation. “How did that happen?” 

Nick just smiles humbly, tucking a curl behind one ear. After a moment, his voice drops an octave and he lets out the dark reminder, “I think you mistake who’s being interrogated here, Alex.”

Alex shrugs. 

“So, the moment of truth.” Nick perks up again. “Kane has knowingly let a government agent into his bed and our business. I’m sure you realize this requires action, of some sort. And this time, Tinna won’t be around to rescue you,” he adds, with a pointed look at the bruise, now yellow, over Miles’s cheekbone. He glances at the two guards at the door, and then motions toward Alex. “Untie him.”

Alex’s wrists are unbound and he’s pulled unsteadily to his feet by two heavy hands on his biceps. He takes a moment to contemplate his freedom, and under the guise of massaging his wrists he scans for exits. His eyes begin to swivel toward Miles. 

Within a second, though, the barrel of a snub nose handgun is being aimed between his eyes, O’Malley eyeing him dispassionately at the other end of it. 

All the breath leaves Alex’s body as he goes nearly cross-eyed trying to take in the sudden change. The cold barrel hovers just above his eyebrows. His lips fuse together, the color drains from his face. He’s been shot before, but Miles hadn’t given him any time before hand to contemplate it. There’d been no time for fear before he’d found himself on that linoleum floor, bleeding and shocked. Now, he becomes aware that he’s entirely unable to move, or to breathe. 

“It’ll stain the carpet,” Nick sighs out. “But it’s still the neatest solution.”

“Don’t,” Miles says weakly. Alex is vaguely aware in his peripheral vision that the Scouser is on his feet, and that one of the bodyguards has a solid, grounding grip on his left wrist to prevent him from surging forward. “Don’t kill him,” he adds, vehement but shaken. 

Nick doesn’t move immediately, but there’s something more calculating in his expression than the gelid determination of a moment before. He lets the gun slide down Alex’s cheek before dropping his arm completely. Immediate threat evaded, Alex’s fingers go numb and his knees begin to wobble; he finds himself collapsed into a sitting position on the settee behind him within seconds, trying not hyperventilate. Miles, too, relaxes in the grip of the guard to his left, but puts a steadying hand on the piano while he sucks in a long, heaving breath. 

“Perhaps not,” Nick muses, and though Alex is expending a fair amount of mental energy on not vomiting, he can still tell what the other man is thinking. They’ve all gauged Miles’s reaction to the threat in the same way - and suddenly Alex has become a future bargaining chip. 

“You owe me, Kane,” Nick says casually, re-holstering his weapon. “Think on what we were discussing earlier. I’m sure you’ll come to the correct conclusion.”

Miles nods breathlessly, eyes on the floor. 

“As for you--” Nick tips his chin toward Alex. “--be aware. I know who you are. I know who your parents are. I know the names and addresses of all your friends, colleagues, and lovers.”

“What are you saying?” Alex cuts in. “Why should I believe any of that?” Despite the indignation in his voice, he has to physically impede himself from wincing as the name _Jamie_ races briefly through his mind.

“I’m not saying anything.” O’Malley blinks indifferently, but when he looks back again something flashes behind his dark eyes. “I’m sure you’ve already made your own choices. But be aware.”

Alex lets out an exasperated huff as one of the bodyguards yanks him to his feet. He perceives Miles, somewhere behind him, as the receptor of similar treatment as they’re both herded toward the narrow hallway and then the door. Alex, still a little unbalanced from the chemicals they’d knocked him out with and his brush with death, holds onto the walls to stay upright. 

“I’ll ring you in the week.” Nick sounds bored with how the meeting has gone, eyes far away. “I hope you’ll have made up your mind by then, Kane.”

Miles nods mutely. One of the guards hands back a handgun, which Alex can only assume was previously confiscated, and Miles shoves it gingerly back into his underarm holster as the door onto the landing opens. 

“Nice to meet you, Alex,” Nick offers, with a vulture-like grin that doesn’t seem to quite suit his soft face. “Good luck with the mess you’ve made.”

The door shuts, and unexpectedly Alex finds himself on a scuffed landing, holding on to the railing for support while Miles looks pointedly at his feet. There’s a few moments of stillness punctuated only by ragged breathing, and then Miles moves forward briskly to slip an arm around Alex’s waist and hold him up. Before Alex can think, they’re making their way downstairs, and his feet snag on each other and the floor before he begins to operate them himself. The arm Miles has coiled just beneath Alex’s ribs is solid, even if the man’s face is still a sickly shade of white. They stagger their way down to street level in silence. 

The Audi is waiting for them when they spill out onto the sidewalk, double parked in front of a Cadillac. Tinna, swinging the keys around one finger, takes one look at them and rushes forward. The two of them lead Alex into the backseat, and a moment later Tinna is behind the wheel and Miles is bent over in the passenger seat beside her, head in his hands. 

“We’re so fucked,” he mutters, as Tinna casts a glance over her shoulder and puts the car in gear. 

“Put your seatbelt on,” she tells Alex, voice laced with a strange impatience, making sure he obeys before she turns back toward Miles. “What happened?”

“We’re out of options,” is the muffled reply. From the backseat, Alex has one eye on the passing twee sandwich shops and one eye on the slope of Miles’s neck. “At least, I am.”

For a few long moments, Tinna doesn’t pry, her eyes on the heavy late afternoon traffic. It’s only once things thin out that she looks at him again, expectant. 

“He threatened Alex if I don’t go through with it.” Miles has pulled his head out of his hands, and now has his elbow resting against the window sill so he can bite at at his thumbnail, eyes far off. “Only a matter of time, I suppose.”

“He didn’t think your relationship with Alex to be purely strategic?”

“He didn’t buy it.”

Tinna’s fingers flex over the steering wheel. “Okay. So you follow his directions. Then what?”

“We pray he doesn’t kill you and Sully and Alex for some other reason.”

“We keep living like this?”

Miles’s head snaps around so he can fix her with a glare. “What fucking choice do we have?”

Alex, with his eyes on the white knuckle grip his own hand has on the door handle, says quietly, “Are you going to tell me what the fuck’s going on here now? ‘Cause my lips are sealed if I don’t want to see all my friends and family killed, apparently.”

Miles’s gaze swivels back toward him ferociously, but some of the fire in him seems to extinguish when they meet eyes. 

“I’ll explain when we get back,” Miles replies after a moment, voice soft. His lips draw together like he wants to say more, but he seems to abandon the effort before anything comes out, leaving Alex to wonder if he had been forming an apology and thought better of it. 

A late afternoon murk has settled over the overcast day by the time they make it back to Beckenham. Alex, once again able to move under his own power, lets the other two slouch ahead of him into the house. He glances up at the uninterrupted gray of the sky for the briefest of moments before following them inside. 

Tinna’s eyes dodge between them, then direct themselves toward the clock on the stove. “I have to pick up Sully,” she declares pointedly, dropping her purse and letting her hair out of a ponytail. She leaves without another word. 

Miles unbuttons the top of his crisp white shirt and deflates against the edge of the counter. His eyes flit up to Alex only once the other man has taken a heavy seat at the table, turned sideways in his chair so he can keep an insistent gaze on a spot just below Miles’s adam’s apple. 

“I dunno what I was thinking,” Miles says finally, swallowing roughly. “Starting this whole thing.”

“If you’re anything like me, you probably weren’t.” Alex shrugs. 

Miles folds his arms across his chest in discomfort. “A few years ago I made a couple of bad deals with the North Koreans that put me in debt. It was dumb, but usually things like that sorted themselves out if I ended up in the right place for a few months. Well, you can imagine that’s not what happened.”

He pauses, maneuvering until he can pick two glasses off the drying rack by the sink. He’s reaching for the gin when he speaks again. “The gist of it is I borrowed some cash from a smaller dealer, but that dealer was already in trouble with O’Malley - I told you what happened to Suki. Nick doesn’t fuck around. He decided to cut out the middle man and settle with me directly when it became clear I wasn’t paying him back. Initially, it wasn’t too much of a change. I did my usual thing, I just gave most of the profits to O’Malley and reported to him every now and again. I wasn’t really dominating like I had been, but it seemed temporary.”

He passes Alex a drink, sitting down opposite him at the table. Alex takes a swig, but Miles only stares at his own glass, lips pressed hard together. “It wasn’t temporary. My debt was never going to be repaid. And he’s ruthless - that’s his only real leverage, but it’s enough. He’ll kill who he has to, and he’ll make you watch. I’ve seen him do it to others. 

“He pulled me out of arms dealing altogether, eventually. Got me involved in other parts of his empire, the more dangerous shit where he could keep an eye on me. When he told me he wanted me back in England, I think it woke me up a little bit. I think I was growing resigned to my fate before, waking up everyday with the expectancy that _this_ would be the day some gang member or intelligence agent or god knows who would finally put me down for good.” He smiles grimly. “I guess I thought Sully and Tinna would be let off to their own devices? I dunno. I was barely alive enough to think.”

Alex opens his mouth to ask a question, but Miles waves him off. “Just let me keep going, yeah? It’s cathartic.”

“When he said he wanted me back in London, I wasn’t particularly concerned about you lads. I’d have to be careful, obviously, but I had no doubts O’Malley would take care of it so that Five would remain impotent. But it did remind me why I’d left in the first place - all that I’d done to initially catapult myself into the world scene. How I’d been at the top for a while.”

“Because you shot me,” Alex deadpans. 

Miles frowns impatiently, and that familiar disconnect rears its head. “We’ve been over this. You’re not dead, I might as well be innocent.” He tugs at a shirtsleeve irritably and continues. “Anyways, he’s right. I had and have taken a tumble from glory. And you have too, if we’re honest.” He motions between them, then at the situation in general. “There’s no going back for either of us.”

Maybe there is, but Alex can’t see it. 

“So, since we’ve been here, Tinna and I have been trying to figure out how to get out from under him. I originally thought you might be useful against Five _and_ him, depending on how things played out. As it is, I think I’ve just fucked everything up even worse.”

“Wait, why does a real estate mogul have any power over you?” Alex asks. “How is O’Malley so powerful?”

“He’s got a toe in a number of businesses,” Miles sighs. “And he’s very clandestine.”

“That’s fucking mental,” Alex muses, contemplating Nick’s thin, half empty file in the Thames House basement. They’d figured he was rich enough to be up to something, but no one imagined he had an empire that reached so far he had major arms dealers as subordinates. 

“No shit.” Miles lets the tumbler fall from his fingers so that it hits the table with a thud. 

“What does he want you to do, then?” Alex prods. “In England?”

“A number of unsavory things,” Miles replies tiredly. “None of them are particularly inspired, by my standards. Mostly organized crime activity. He loves to give me the illusion of choice, as you may have noticed this afternoon. This week he wants me to supervise the movement of some amphetamines into the country - a lot of danger for something incredibly dull, compared to selling warheads.” He breaks off for a moment, frown deepening. “I imagine now that he’s met you he’ll...well, all I know is that we need to get away from him.”

Alex isn’t really sure what to do with his use of we - but before he can contemplate who it refers to, Tinna returns with Sully in tow. Miles has stood to wash out his glass in the sink, and Sully meanders over to him until he can tug on Miles’s pant leg. Miles chuckles slightly, and lifts the boy up into his arms. “How was your afternoon, la?”

The sun has set. Alex is exhausted, with a pounding headache and an aura that smells vaguely of stress sweat. The thought of returning to his flat is, as usual, entirely unattractive. Technically, he has to go into the office tomorrow, and go through the motions of avoiding his friends and colleagues in some combination of shame and defensiveness. His exhaustion is not just a side effect of the kind of day he’s had - it’s the product of what has become months of feeling himself disintegrate and be inexplicably rebuilt in Miles’s company. 

They end up eating dinner in the living room, plates balanced on knee caps and armrests in front of the telly. Alex makes a point of not thinking - it’s becoming easier with every attempt. At some point, he finds himself with his head on Miles’s shoulder, a pair of arms encircling his torso. It’s strange and warm, and he engages in some dozing as the evening progresses. Eventually, he feels lips press against his hairline gently, reverently, and then a long sigh stirs his eyelashes. He’s still awake enough to blush. 

Miles snickers, his mouth at Alex’s ear. “It’s a good thing that shade of pink is so pretty on you, since you wear it so often.”

Alex’s lips curve upward, in a way that hardly even surprises him anymore.

Later, after Sully and Tinna have retired, he finds himself at the top of the stairs, pressed against the last foot of the bannister as Miles kisses him fervently, hands grasping at his cheeks. It must be midnight, or close to it, but tomorrow is the thing farthest from his mind when he drops to his knees, and begins to press his lips and teeth to the places just above where the waistband of Miles’s pants rest. 

Miles seems to enjoy the scandal of it, for a moment, glancing around the empty, half-dark upstairs hallways. Then he shakes his head with a smile, before slipping two fingers beneath Alex’s chin and motioning toward the bedroom. 

Afterwards, Alex’s headache has subsided somewhat, and the twilight of the bedroom seems ripe for the coalescence of soft skin and mellifluous sighs. He has his head in the hollow where Miles’s neck meets his shoulder, neither conscious or unconscious, neither worried nor at ease. Miles’s fingers are in his hair, and it feels more normal than it ever has - he forgets, at brief intervals, what has lead him here, and all the unpleasantness that will inevitably come. Almost forgets what he’s always known - that this will not end well. 

m m m

He forces himself to head back to his flat by sunrise, when the world still feels disheveled and surreal. The city seems lethargic and muted, or maybe that’s him - either way, when he sees Matt leaning against the wall next to the door to his apartment building, he can’t find it in himself to be surprised anymore. 

“Aye up,” he murmurs, with noncombatant nod, as he searches for his keys. 

“What’ve _you_ been up to?” Matt asks, eyebrows raised, taking in Alex’s unwashed hair and the creases in his day old clothes. 

Alex shrugs, eyes on the lock. He gains access, and without any communication Alex holds the door open and Matt follows him inside. The stairs are ascended in silence, but it’s not uncomfortable - they’ve known each other for too long for it to be, regardless of the last few months. 

Inside the flat, he’s aware he should be embarrassed of the state of it - the dwindling amount of time he’s spent there has it in the process of decay. Dust has begun to blanket the flat surfaces, and a pile of dirty laundry has taken over most of the bedroom. Rather pitifully, Jamie’s socks still lie on an armrest of the settee. Alex tosses his jacket onto the counter and sets to work looting the fridge, finding only a jar of olives and some chilled vodka. He opens the olives and slides it over to Matt, who shrugs and pulls out a few with his bare fingers. 

It seems prudent, from this perspective, to curl up for forty-eight hours instead of trying to go to work - where Ford will surely want an update, and there will probably be some sort of insufferable department meeting on things unrelated to the Kane case, which most of his colleagues have moved on from in the absence of any breaks. Even the interest of the higher administration has drained, leaving Alex to crusade on his own, until someone takes notice. He should feel more liberated by this than he does. 

Finally, Matt speaks. “You’ve gotta tell me what’s going on, mate. I can help.”

Alex shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “No, you can’t.”

“You don’t have to go it alone, regardless.” He sets down the olives and turns to face Alex fully. “C’mon. You’re not right. You need me.”

Alex watches his own fingers curl around the edge of the counter, jaw set tight. He figures that if there’s anyone he can tell, it’s Matt, but that doesn’t mean he should - by coming clean, he implicates Matt in any future misfortune. Matt will incriminate himself before he spills Alex’s secrets. And there’s still O’Malley to contend with as well - he’s spared Alex’s life, despite the fact he’s a potential threat, but it’s a toss up whether he’ll extend that courtesy to Matt as well. 

Still, the words come before he can stop them. 

“I’m really, really in the shit, Matthew,” he breathes. “I fucked up. I keep fucking up.”

“It’s alright,” Matt replies quietly. “It’s going to be alright.”

Alex shakes his head, biting hard down on his lip, and finally tells him everything. It comes out in disjointed, half formed parts as he tries to assemble the story fully in his head, even while he still doesn’t understand every section of it. By the end, Matt has had to take a hard seat on the settee, and Alex wobbles slightly on his feet. 

“So, you’re fucking an arms dealer who’s being controlled by an even bigger crime boss that somehow isn’t on our radar at all?” Matt asks, dragging a weary hand over his face. 

Alex lets out a long sigh, and nods. 

“Holy shit.”

Alex crosses the room and collapses into a chair. Saying it all aloud has released none of the tension from his shoulders. 

“This is so fucking mad,” Matt lets out. “How did it get to this point?” And then, almost as an afterthought: “Do you love him?”

Alex’s mouth opens to reply, but then shuts abruptly when he realizes he doesn’t have an answer. Eventually, he fights the muddle enough to get out, “I dunno...it’s different…”

And it is. For one, Tinna and Sully factor into the equation - how, exactly, he can’t quite discern, but they’re important nonetheless. And the situation, too, makes it difficult to apply something as domestic as love to what they have. He’s loved Jamie, and Alexa, and others, but it’s an impossible comparison. Maybe if the circumstances were changed, things would be more clear cut, but as it is all he knows is that he keeps coming back to Beckenham for some reason that must be significant. 

“I have no idea,” he says finally, and Matt frowns. 

“So what happens now?” Matt asks, getting to his feet uncertainly. 

“I don’t know,” Alex murmurs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Miles made it sound like he and Tinna were looking for a way out. I don’t know if that means now, or soon, or ever...I dunno anything.”

“Okay.” Matt seems to be gathering his nerve, nodding to himself as he speaks. “Okay, that’s fine. We’ll figure it out.”

Alex snorts and doesn’t look it up. “There’s nothing to figure out, Helders. I’m fucked.”

“No, you’re not,” he replies fiercely. “We’ll figure it out.” He approaches the door, and Alex gets to his feet to follow. “Are you coming into the office today?”

Alex glances at the clock, and then down at himself. A shower would improve things, and maybe a few hours nap. Better to show up, rather than have people wonder. “Yeah, in a bit.”

“I’ll see you there.” He nods again, with growing resolve, which only inspires further unease in Alex. The farther Matt digs himself into this, the worse the consequences will be, and Alex can’t stand the thought of dragging Matt down with him any more than he already has. 

Matt hugs him, brief and strong, before he slips out the door, and even though he no longer has the added guilt of lying, Alex can still hardly look him in the eye. The silence of the flat encloses him once again and he heads for the shower rapidly to drown it out. Afterwards, he doesn’t even shed the towel before falling into the stale sheets of the unmade bed. 

By the time he stumbles into work, it’s early afternoon, and despite a few cups of coffee he still feels like the walking dead. He keeps his head down and makes it to his desk, settling in to finish a few surveillance reports from when he was still officially staking out the Beckenham residence. Ford appears before long, though, seeming obviously put off by the dark circles under Alex’s eyes, and beckons him into his office. 

“I heard you were in Islington following a lead yesterday?” Ford asks, settling into a his rolling chair. “Anything come of that?”

Alex shakes his head immediately. “Nothing.”

“Even though he went off CCTV?”

“I couldn’t find him.” Alex shrugs. 

“So you’ve made officially _no_ progress on this case, then?” Ford raises one eyebrow, voice taking the tone he’s lately reserved only for Alex. 

Alex tenses. “You know these things take time. I realize we have competition for the case, but this is complicated.”

“Yeah, speaking of competition…” Ford begins, and Alex immediately stops breathing. Ford sees his expression and concedes, “It’s out of my control.”

“Who?” Alex manages. 

“Weller at Six.” Ford reaches for a pen to drum unhappily on his desk. “It’s out of my control but I think it’s for the best. He has more experience, they’ll be able to allocate more resources. And I think it’ll be better for you to take a step back.”

Alex feels his face contort. “How could you?”

“You’re not doing any good, Al,” James retorts. “This is beyond us. I shouldn’t have let your little quest for vengeance go on this long anyways.”

Alex can feel words he will regret gathering in his throat. He stands abruptly. 

“I’m putting you back with Matt on that drug ring from a few months ago. You two were actually making progress on that, I believe.” Ford stands, perhaps expecting a handshake. Alex turns his back silently and heads for the door. 

“I’ll send the paperwork over for you,” Ford adds, and finally there’s something vaguely apologetic in his tone. 

Alex nods stiffly, without looking back at him, and departs. In the gloom of the hallway, he stands absolutely still for a moment, controlling his breathing with a deliberateness that is definitely slightly unhinged. Matt, eventually, finds him standing there, and takes him by the limp elbow outside for a silent, autumnal smoke. 

m m m

The routine, over the last few weeks, has put him in Beckenham for nearly every weekend, but Friday night Tinna sends him a text in her usual terse, concise style that informs him of the fact Miles will be out working for most of it. Still, he ends up there anyway, building dirt tracks in the backyard with Sully for his remote control car. It’s simple, and almost serene - under Tinna’s watchful eye, with Sully’s unconcerned babble in his ears, things appear much more settled than he suspects they ever will be again. The question of whether he loves Miles, for a moment, seems especially entwined with whether he loves afternoons like this. 

Beyond Miles’s absence, there’s another notable difference as well - he’s told Matt where he’s going, in a quick Saturday morning text. There’s something safe and settled in that, too; he’s never really believed that any harm can come to him if Matt’s still on his side. It’s been too long. 

He’s still awake and basking in the glow of his strange, new state of relaxation when Miles tumbles in, after midnight on Saturday. Alex and Tinna have made a habit of spending their evenings with whatever reality show has made it on to BBC Four, and so when Miles comes in, weary-eyed and crinkled, he finds the two of them sprawled over the living room furniture and watching _Young, Rich, and House Hunting._ Immediately, he deflates next to Alex, neck giving way until his head can rest limply on the back of the sofa. 

“What happened?” Tinna asks, shooting him a glance. 

“These fucking drug dealer cunts can’t find their arses with both hands and a flashlight,” he sighs. “No wonder O’Malley wants me handling them. They don’t know a goddamn thing about successful crime. It’s about delayed gratification. All they care about is immediate profits.”

“And you don’t?” Alex asks, and the gentle tease in his tone appears entirely of its own volition. 

Miles smiles slyly at him. “I have a bit more style, though, don’t I?” He motions toward Alex’s shoulder. “None of these fucking jelly-dick dealers would ever have the balls to shoot a cop.”

And Alex laughs, because what Miles has said is absolutely absurd, and the fact that he’s said it to Alex is also absurd, and Alex then laughing at it is fucking absurd too. He laughs until it catches in his throat and turns into a cough. 

It’s because of this that he doesn’t hear his mobile vibrating on the side table until it’s already gone to voicemail. By the time he reaches for it, with the arm that’s not taken its place wrapped around Miles, Matt is already calling again. Alex briefly considers ignoring him, but it’s an obsolete reaction - Matt is involved, for better or for worse, and it’s wrong to pretend otherwise. He heaves himself from the sofa and takes the call in the hallway, keeping his voice low so it doesn’t float up the stairs and wake Sully. 

“What is it, Helders?” he asks, voice light. It doesn’t occur to him as odd that Matt would phone at this hour, or that he’s made the effort of calling instead of texting. 

“I just heard from Ford,” he replies, and his tone instantly has Alex’s hackles rising. “He’s got Miles Kane on CCTV moving amphetamines into the city from Dover.”

“How--”

“He must be linked to the drug ring we started in on in the spring. We’ve had photographic surveillance glued to them since then. Kane just showed up today, and one of the analysts sent up the alarm.” Matt pauses, and the only thing that fills the gap is Alex’s suddenly heaving breaths. “You know what this means,” Matt adds quietly. 

Alex nods, even though Matt can’t see him. He feels some combination of panic and bile rising in his throat as he turns back toward the sepia warmth of the living room behind him. This means that for the first time in ten years, Five has solid evidence against Miles Kane. This means that the Scouser’s days of living just out of reach of the law are over. 

“Holy shit,” Alex rasps. 

Things are going to change.


	6. The Devil Himself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The paradigm shifts._

**Part 6 - The Devil Himself**

 

The morning is crisp and clear when the trio crosses over the yard’s decaying greenery, toward the dew-laden Audi. Sully has been deposited at the house of a remarkably tolerant neighbor, and since then neither Tinna or Miles has made the slightest effort to maintain any semblance of normalcy. Today, already, was slated to be tense, but with Saturday night’s revelation there’s an atmosphere of indecisive unpredictability that adds exponentially to the thickness of the air. 

It hadn’t even occurred to Alex to keep Matt’s information to himself; within minutes he, Tinna, and Miles were all seated around the dinner table again, staring at each other in shock while the reverberations of their predicament rolled through them. Before ten minutes had passed, Miles’s mobile rang - Nick O’Malley, wide awake despite the hour, inviting them tersely to brunch on Sunday morning. Alex hadn’t even had time to be nauseated by the fact O’Malley had acquired classified surveillance information from Five with no apparent trouble whatsoever. 

Nor had he had time to dispute the fact that Nick had made it abundantly clear that Alex is to be present at today’s brunch meeting, even though Alex’s initial plan had been to head into work and begin scheming with Matt on how best to mitigate the damage. The heart of the matter, however, is that at this point Alex is far more afraid of Nick O’Malley than he is of MI5. 

So Sunday morning they find themselves awake before dawn, having slept fitfully, if at all. Alex’s night has been blindingly conscious, at least - Miles had fared better, eventually nodding off after spending a long hour watching Alex worry his bottom lip, his head against Alex’s shoulder. There had been no discussion, not even the slightest attempt at contemplating the future - Alex wonders vaguely if it’s because of his presence, if Tinna and Miles haven’t quite decided where he lies in any plans they might make. In all honesty, Alex hasn’t decided either, but mostly because he can’t (and won’t) imagine the full impact of this latest development. To do so would acknowledge the unquantifiable madness of the situation he’s put himself in, remove whatever happiness he’s found in the absurdity of the last few weeks, and substitute it for the nausea he was once so used to. Tinna and Miles seem equally keen to maintain the illusion. The imminent reveal of O’Malley’s reaction serves, almost, as a helpful distraction from the turmoil between the three of them. 

The ride to the designated cafe is silent. Tinna drives, but she seems twitchy, and it’s the first time Alex has felt anything less than confident in her ability to be stoic and in control. Not for the first time, he wonders how exactly she ended up in this place, and found such comfort in it. It’s clear she’s devoted to Miles, if not in the conventional way, and to Sully, and the life they have in Beckenham. But her lack of verbosity has left a gap in Alex’s mind concerning the moment where she became more than hired muscle. The moment when the gun beneath her armpit became a little more personal. 

O’Malley has secured them a table at a posh, vintage style diner in town, wherein the decorations are composed entirely of WWII propaganda posters and a fake info card on the checkered tablecloth advises of new Blitzkrieg hours. Alex finds the whole thing a little macabre, but maybe that’s Nick’s intention. He dares a glance at the fellow Sheffielder, across and to his left, and finds him in a demure looking cardigan, his curls loose around his face. His posture is casual; he’s smirking slightly as Miles chooses salmon on rye for his brunch. 

Alex has been picking at a bowl full of cantaloupe for a good ten minutes before O’Malley starts in on the topic at hand. 

“So,” he begins, twirling his fork in some sort of syrupy concoction, “You’ve fucked up. Perhaps inevitably, given the location, but I did think better of you.”

“ _You_ sent me there,” Miles hisses. “Why didn’t you warn me Five would be watching?”

Nick shrugs. “I figured you already knew.” He gestures toward Alex. “What with your pet agent and all.”

Miles makes a noise of indignation, but Nick brushes him off and continues. “Regardless, we have a bit of a problem now. One, Five will be coming for you imminently. Two, I can’t say you’ve exactly bolstered my confidence in you.”

“Tragic,” Miles mutters, just loud enough for O’Malley’s ears. 

“And, as an effect, I’m reevaluating your usefulness in England,” he says, taking a nonchalant sip of the tea in front of him. Tinna and Miles exchange a fervent look at the thought of getting out of the minefield that is the UK, and Alex feels something uncertain twist in his gut. “You were doing well in Vienna, but I think I’d rather have you some place more central, maybe Riyadh…?” Nick trails off, eyes on the ceiling as he slips into contemplation. 

“How do I get out of the country if Five is on the verge of detaining me?” Miles asks, sounding noticeably eager. 

“I should have that taken care of by the end of the week,” Nick says. “Get some evidence destroyed and whatnot. They might still try to pick you up, but they won’t be able to for long. I still want you below the radar, though. Especially with _that_ one involved.” All eyes swivel toward Alex. 

“He’s trustworthy,” Miles offers quickly. 

“Doesn’t mean he won’t slip up.” Nick shrugs. “As long as he acts to preserve himself, he’ll preserve you. But the moment that fails, on purpose or by accident, all three of you are done for. And that’s just assuming Five doesn’t figure it out on their own and press him into telling all before I can get to him.” He sneers a little, seeming to take pleasure in the chaos of it all. “It’s quite a mess.”

Alex, feeling mute and chilled, glances between Miles, Tinna, and Nick and sees only varying degrees of the same predatory stare. 

They meal winds to a close by the time the sun hits high noon, and Alex notes that none of them, including O’Malley, have touched more than a third of their food. Tinna, especially, hasn’t even bothered with pretenses, and seems noticeably put off by every slight clink of a dish being cleared, every nearby voice raised in a laugh. Outside, the crisp morning is fading into a more characteristic overcast afternoon. Alex, in only a t-shirt, regrets his choice of clothing and from there his mind wanders further as they pad collectively toward the back lot. 

Tinna seems to have habits similar to O’Malley’s driver; both have parked in the darkest, most secluded corner of an already unusually well-hidden urban parking lot. He’s aware of Nick’s presence behind him, turning his feet toward the pearl white Escalade slid expertly in next to the weathered brick wall of the neighboring deli. Alex is within spitting distance of the Audi’s back bumper when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and from there things happen very quickly. 

It’s not Nick’s touch that makes him jump so much as the way his fingers locate and brush over the scar on Alex’s shoulder with such a deft and impossible knowledge. Nick leans into say something, but before he can get a word out, Tinna’s fingers close around Alex’s wrist and yank him forward. In the space of a second, they’ve all been rearranged; suddenly Miles and Alex are standing behind Tinna, one of her arms out to corral them in place, the other stretched out in front of her with one long finger wrapped around the trigger of a handgun. A moment later, Alex feels Miles’s fingers clamp around his elbow, though it’s unclear whether it’s a gesture meant to comfort or restrain. 

The reactionary force, too, has been abruptly contorted into a new shape - two of Nick’s bodyguards materialize from the shadows, weapons raised, sights shifting between Tinna and Miles every few seconds. Alex is only slightly offended that he seems to be overlooked as a potential threat. Nick, shoved into the safety of the background, takes in the silent stalemate for the briefest of seconds before he begins to snicker. 

“Feeling a might unsettled, Ms. Bergs?” he asks, stepping forward without even sparing a glance at her weapon. “Your loyalty to the Fed is amusing. It remains to be seen whether he’ll return the favor.” He fixes Alex with a smirk that makes his skin crawl. Miles’s grip on his elbow tightens. 

“Still, I don’t appreciate having a gun pointed at me by an employee,” he says, sounding only half-interested as he turns his back on her. He looks back just before climbing into the backseat of the Escalade, motioning for his guards to lower their weapons and follow. His eyes, suddenly cold, settle on Miles. “Especially when you’ve already failed to deliver this week. I’m not sure you’ll be of any more use in Riyadh,” he adds, pointedly. 

“Somewhere else, then…?” Miles prods, and there’s something tight and gut-clenching in his voice. 

Nick doesn’t reply. He shuts the door and any clue to his expression is lost to the tinted glass. The car pulls out and then it’s only the three of them, tousled slightly by the wake of the enormous vehicle. Tinna says nothing, just tosses the keys to Alex and slips into the backseat, eyes on ground. Miles looks noticeably nauseous; still, he nods toward the keys in Alex’s hand. “You drive.”

They pull out into traffic and things begin to fall apart. 

Miles, in the passenger seat, drops his face into his hands and groans. Alex thinks about reaching out for him, but his fingers curl around the gear shift instead. Tinna, from the back, says softly, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. He makes me nervous.”

“No shit,” Miles mutters, but there’s no malice behind it. Alex suspects that there’s an inevitably in some of this - Tinna is not the sort to be threatened, or pinned down, and it’s the whole reason she’s so potent as a bodyguard. Subordinate to O’Malley was never going to suit her for long. She’s been squirming under his thumb just as much as Miles has, leaving today’s events as only the catalyst for her inexorable deterioration. 

“We can’t keep living like this,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. 

“I know,” Miles replies, without looking up from where he’s digging the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. 

“He’s going to kill us. We’re not useful and not cooperative and we’ve got the Feds after us. And even if he doesn’t kill us, he’ll just leave us out for Five to take care of.” Her voice has grown unexpectedly stronger; she all but growls out the bitter possibilities. 

“I know,” Miles hisses. 

“We’ve got no fucking time,” she snarls. “We need to get out.”

“And how the fucking hell do you propose we do that?” Miles’s head shoots up and snaps back to fix her with a glare as cold as his tone. “With both Five and O’Malley on us? There’s no goddamn way. We just need to ride this out. He’ll get over it.”

“And then what?” she retorts, and Alex sees her eyes flash in the rearview mirror. 

Miles just shakes his head, squeezing the bridge of his nose. Alex is afraid to speak. The morning has him possessed by the uncertainty that’s been lurking there the whole time - the uncertainty that comes with not knowing exactly how he fits into all this beyond the current status quo. He can’t imagine things going back to the way they were before Miles Kane arrived back in the UK; in fact, he’s sure that _that_ particular outcome is an impossibility. He’s betrayed his friends and his country and what would be the _point_ , anyway - his whole professional life seems, from this vantage point, to have been just one long hunt for Kane. Now that Miles has been not only found but at least halfway understood, Alex’s entire function at Five appears meaningless. But if he outlaws the possibility of the future being anything like the past, then where does that leave them? How can Alex conceivably fit into any imaginable future at this juncture?

Silence falls, save the transmission protesting when Alex gets lost in his thoughts and forgets to shift. Finally, Tinna reaches forward one hand to plug in the auxiliary cord, and then Sonic Youth is almost loud enough to prevent Alex from thinking at all. 

m m m

In the warm light of the overhead lamp, Alex peruses his options, his knees pressing into the stained carpet. The bookshelf crowds the narrow hallway but, from what Alex has gleaned from a late afternoon wander through the upstairs portion of the house, there’s no better place for it. He squats, fingers brushing over the spines, and decides that Camus might be a good choice for his nerves. He’s not surprised, once he pulls the book from the shelf, to find _T. Bergs_ inscribed neatly on the title page. Something about Miles just doesn’t suggest that he spends any great amount of time contemplating the meaning behind the meaningless. 

Alex sits back on his haunches to read, and downstairs, the fight rages on. 

Tinna and Miles’s disagreement in the car had carried over once they’d landed back in Beckenham, and their intermittent shouting had driven both Sully and Alex up to the second floor. It’s not so much the raised voices that bother Alex; rather, it’s the uncertainty that the subject of the argument raises in him. Tinna wants to flee, Miles thinks they have no choice but to maintain life as it is now - and Alex can’t really imagine either working out well for him. 

Alex, eventually, finds a comfortable patch of floor in Miles’s bedroom and lays out on his back, book held aloft over his head. From this low vantage point, things are almost sanguine - he can ignore his mobile and the events of the morning and the voices downstairs. Sully appears on the threshold after a while, looking shaken by the fight downstairs despite the brave face he always seems to be putting on. Still, worried eyes blink at Alex behind small, light framed glasses, and Alex beckons him forward. 

Alex motions downstairs as he props himself into a sitting position. “I wouldn’t worry about them. They just have to sort themselves out for a bit, you know?” he says, and it almost sounds convincing. 

Sully shrugs, lips turned down in a volatile frown as he sits with criss-crossed legs. Alex scrounges around for a deck of cards and teaches him to play Texas hold ‘em until the boy’s breaths are less like sniffles. The voices below them begin to fade; finally, steps echo up the stairwell. They don’t stop playing when Miles comes in and sits down on the end of the bed, but Alex spares a glance at him. He’s the epitome of exhaustion - shoulders hunched, shirt wrinkled, hair mussed. Cigarette stained fingers come up to rub at his eyes. 

“Nice one, Sul,” Miles murmurs, when Sully wins the next hand. 

“Why were you fighting?” Sully asks bluntly, turning wide eyes on Miles. 

Miles pauses for a moment, lip twitching. Eventually, he smirks. “Your dad were being stubborn.”

Alex looks up at him expectantly, then, and after a moment Miles reluctantly meets his eyes. “I need to talk to you,” he admits, rubbing one hand up and down his thigh with a certain distaste. He looks to Sully. “First, though, _you_ should be in bed.”

Alex lurks while, under Miles’s guidance, Sully gets ready to crawl beneath the sheets. He stands on the threshold as Miles kisses the boy good night and reaches for the bedside lamp. Tinna appears a few moments later, exchanging a frosty glance with Miles before heading into Sully’s room to copy his actions. 

In the hallway, Alex heaves a sigh, and Miles leans over unexpectedly to pull him into an embrace. 

It’s tender in a way Alex still isn’t really used to, and suggests something more than just the typical attraction to another warm body. He reciprocates by pressing his face into the Scouser’s neck and inhaling. The strangeness of the situation as a whole is beginning to wear off; he’s accepted the absurd as commonplace now. However, not even the absolutely ridiculous can erase his worries anymore.

He pulls back from the embrace, leaning against the wall with his chin held aloft to fix his eyes on Miles. “What did you decide, then?”

Miles’s eyes land on the floor and he takes a step backward, before motioning toward the stairs. “I need a smoke.”

Outside, they end up perched on the front stoop, beneath the faded porch light and huddling together against the October chill. Though Alex could really go for a few whole ones at the moment, they end up sharing only a single cigarette between them before Miles begins to speak, hands grasped between his thighs for warmth. 

“She’s right,” he breathes, perfectly frank. “I know it and it terrifies me.”

Alex nods, in agreement with both sentiments. There isn’t any future in England with Nick’s vice-like grip and Five’s ever present surveillance. The walls are not closing in but have, in fact, already closed, which leaves Tinna’s solution the only one left. 

_Run._

“We need to get out. Get somewhere really fucking far away. Somewhere Five can’t reach and he won’t bother to look.” He pauses for a moment to slide a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I don’t even know where that is.”

Alex remains silent, and eventually Miles seems to misread it and turns a gaze on him hesitantly. “I don’t expect you...I mean, you don’t have to--” He cuts himself off, scowling, but his next words comes out in a rush. “I’ve already fucked up your life enough. You can have it back now. I don’t expect you to give everything up and run off; I’m not even sure you should. I don’t know what this all means any more than you do, it’s just...fuck, I dunno.”

“Me neither,” Alex admits. He leans his head against Miles’s shoulder and goes to specific lengths to not think about what Miles has proposed - the meaning behind it and the future it offers. 

Miles says, “I don’t know if you’re safe here. Since Nick knows who you are and what you’ve done. If I’m gone…” He trails off, and Alex becomes aware that it’s almost an invitation. 

Alex bites his bottom lip, and lets himself ruminate on what Miles has offered. There’s a part of him that is paralyzed by the plethora of uncertainties that come with an affirmative answer - the same part of him that knows what he’s leaving behind. In truth, though, he’s already lost Jamie, and Alexa, and Matt would probably be better off without Alex’s bullshit dragging him into quagmires like this. His job, too, is all but gone, and perhaps he never should’ve had it in the first place - he’d allowed himself to be recruited by Five only after it was clear that he’d be included in all future Kane related investigations. It had nurtured his fixation, but now that Miles is a quantifiable force he can’t imagine there’s anything left for him at MI5. Not after he’s betrayed them all, rather remorselessly, and separated himself entirely from the sane and the reasonable. It doesn’t feel like much of a loss. 

Miles slides an arm around his waist and deflates. Alex doesn’t provide an immediate answer, but leans into the hold and wonders if it’ll be enough. 

m m m

The weekend finishes and he meets Matt first thing Monday morning, pushing the unknown to the back of his mind and focusing on the immediate. Since the damning CCTV footage has been uncovered, Ford has been assembling an inter-agency committee to decide on forward movement. Representatives of Five, Six, the Yard, and one member of Parliament had held an emergency meeting on Sunday, which Matt had attended while Alex was at brunch. Nick O’Malley, of course, did not come up once. 

It’s been determined that even though they believe Miles does not know he has been caught, they will still need to move quickly before anyone can tip him off. A warrant for arrest has already been procured; now it’s just a matter of pinning Kane where and when he can’t escape. 

Alex feels himself chill as Matt explains this to him, his voice barely above a whisper as they stand in the secluded smoking area behind the building. The committee wants to mobilize by Wednesday; so if Miles is going to run, he needs to do it quickly. 

“We’re meeting today to plan out the assault,” Matt says. “Ford will wonder if you’re not there.”

“I know, I know,” Alex breathes, rubbing at his forehead and fumbling for another cigarette. 

“What happened yesterday?” Matt asks, eyes penetrating. Alex takes a long drag before answering. 

“Miles agreed with Tinna. They’re gonna try to run, get out from O’Malley _and_ Five,” he says, eyes locking onto a bin across the street to ground himself. 

Matt looks at him for a long moment, then nods. The seconds stretch and, finally, he asks quietly, “You’re going with him, aren’t you?”

Alex pauses abruptly, pulling the cigarette from his lips. “I haven’t decided.”

“Okay,” Matt replies, sounding unconvinced. He glances at his watch. “We need to go. Committee’s meeting until we’ve got this all sorted out.” He begins to head inside. “Try not to say too much. You’re not a good enough liar.”

Alex doesn’t protest this observation, but Matt pauses with his hand on the door knob anyway. His lips press tight together, brow momentarily furrowing, and Alex grinds out his cigarette while he waits. 

“Do you love him?” Matt murmurs finally, mouth curling in distaste at the delicacy of the question. He’s asked before; Alex still isn’t sure what answer satisfies all parties. Is a shared appreciation for absurdity enough to be considered love? The history between them should be insurmountable, but already the fact that Miles is the reason for the scar on his shoulder seems so irrelevant. There should be a vast chasm between them, swirling with history and obsession and other lovers and lies, but if it’s there then Alex can’t find it. The question of Miles’s expectations of him remain, too - is Alex not just a tool? An easily pliable participant? Does he trust Miles not to get what he needs and leave him behind?

“I might,” is the reply that slips past his lips, and he wonders if he means _no._

The name _Jamie_ still swirls sluggishly through his mind, but he’s starting to get the feeling it always will. 

In a windowless conference room, a number of men in cheap suits have gathered over cups of coffee and debrief packets. The off-white walls are scuffed by the number of rolling chairs crammed into the tight space. The one elected official invited to yesterday’s meeting apparently can’t make it today, but another unremarkable Yard man has taken her place. The Sixers seem marginally better put together, ties silk and socks impenetrably black, while the detectives are all dressed in shades of beige Alex can only assume are meant to compliment the mustard stains on their cuffs. The room is temperature controlled but Alex takes one look around and is immediately stifled. 

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence,” Ford greets from a seat on the left side of the table, smirk not quite friendly. Still, Alex slides into the chair beside him, undoing the middle button of his suit jacket and blubbering about some Sunday morning family emergency. Matt sends him a warning look just as the others settle into their seats, and Alex finishes off by directing an faux-innocent shrug at James. “And last I heard I was no longer on the Kane case.”

Ford narrows his eyes, unimpressed, but before he can retort a thin, gray haired man is speaking, and Alex has no doubt that this is the “Weller from Six” that has replaced him as lead on the investigation. Alex feels his skin crawl; he shouldn’t be here. The longer he stays under the eyes of the men in this room, the more likely he is to incriminate himself, and the less time he has to help Miles flee the country. He itches for Beckenham and forward movement. 

The meeting muddles through the details of Kane’s crimes, both past and present. Alex is consulted, briefly, but when the vast majority of his replies concerning Miles’s actions off CCTV and larger plans are made up of insouciant shrugs, he’s hardly spared a glance. It’s decided that the hardest evidence, of course, is the photographs of drug smuggling from Saturday; everything else is circumstantial at best. A number of successful loopholes and convenient fuck-ups are the cause of the lack of evidence for the initial bank robberies, and everything that came after was confirmed through channels that won’t stand up to the justice system. Even if they do manage to get Miles pinned before he slips out the back door, it’ll be work getting him to _stay_ pinned. A confession and plea deal would be the only surefire chance to keep him down, but there’s a murmur of agreement when Weller admits that it’s highly unlikely Kane would be the sort to acquiesce to such a thing. Still, Miles is undoubtedly in a tight spot, and Alex sees the table collectively let out a satisfied sigh at how they’ve managed to hamstring him so successfully. 

“I want him in custody by Thursday,” Weller declares, and Alex tries not to choke on his tea. 

They break for lunch, and Alex ends up in the men’s loo, leaning against the wall while he tries to decide if he’s going to vomit. Eventually, after a few long breaths, he pulls out his mobile instead. 

“Thursday,” he breathes, without any preface. 

Miles asks immediately, “Is this line secure?”

“It’s my personal mobile.”

Miles grunts with something like discontent, but forges ahead. “O’Malley said he’d take care of this.”

“They’re being well careful this time,” Alex replies. “I think anything Nick tries now will be too late.”

“Jesus-fuck,” Miles mutters, and then there’s a sound that Alex suspects is the Scouser running an anxious hand over his face. There’s a long silence, and then Miles asks, “Can you come over tonight?”

“I’ll find a way.”

The afternoon rolls on, and though the temperature is on the colder side of moderate Alex feels sweat crawl down the line of his spine every few seconds. He’d gotten into this mess while summer still had London snared in its reign of terror, but fall has offered no relief. He can’t even imagine making it to winter at all. 

Weller continues his soliloquy throughout the afternoon, but doesn’t get into the meat of Thursday’s operation before the room is too fried to be productive. At seven, things begin to break-up, and everything about Alex besides his body is already in Beckenham. He’s practically sprinting for an exit, and has almost made it, when Alexa appears out of nowhere and halts him with just a look. 

“I’m actually in a bit of a hurry,” he says briskly, looking past her and hoping she’ll get the message. Undoubtedly, she does, and ignores it shamelessly. 

“What’s wrong with you?” she asks, placing a restraining hand on his bicep. “Where’s your fucking coat? It’s freezing out there.”

“Lex, I have to--”

“Here, take my sweater.” She’s stripping off her overcoat, then, and unbuttoning the cardigan beneath. He doesn’t have time to stop her before she’s wrapping it around his shoulders. They still wear the same size, as it turns out. He wonders how, after all this time. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he gets out finally.

She shrugs. “Too late now.”

“I just...I’m not sure when I’ll get it back to you.”

Alexa’s eyes dart up to his face, and he wonders how much she understands. How much she _can_ understand. “It’s okay,” she says quietly. “You can keep it if you need to.”

“I’m…,” he pauses before anything damning passes his lips. Something about her expression is unraveling him. “Thank you.”

Her gaze drops to the ground, but she smiles. “I won’t keep you any longer.”

She goes quickly after that, leaving him with a clear path to the stairs. He thinks it’s possible that she meant to confront him about his unusual behavior, but they’d managed to disarm each other before she’d had the chance. Or maybe confrontation didn’t end up as necessary - surely, she’s read off his face everything she needs to know, and has walked away regardless. 

m m m

By the time he makes it to Beckenham, Tinna and Miles have pushed dinner to the side and are bent over a notebook on the kitchen table. Miles looks up when he comes in, greeting him with a kiss and directing him toward the leftovers in the fridge. Alex hardly notices the surreality anymore. 

After procuring himself a bowl of lukewarm pot roast, he approaches where they’ve settled into plotting. Miles has his phone out and is scrolling through his contact list, every now and then calling out a name that Tinna then scribbles down on the page in front of her. 

“Is Hawley still in Tangier?” Miles looks up, consulting Tinna quizzically. “I don’t think I’ve ever fucked him over. He might hide us for a season or two.” He directs his gaze to Alex, perched on the chair beside him with a mouth full of beef. “How does winter in Morocco sound?”

Before Alex can reply, Tinna chimes in. “I’m not sure that’s far enough. O’Malley’s brother still has a hold on North Africa, or so I’ve heard.”

“Fuck,” Miles murmurs, glancing back down on his phone. “Who else is on the list so far?”

“Homme in Singapore, Mosshart in Astana, and Sharrock in La Paz,” Tinna says, consulting the list with a twirl of her pen. 

“Okay, I’ll start with Josh. He should be awake, shouldn’t he? If he’s not still plastered from the night before.” Miles is already dialing the number, not expecting a response from Tinna or Alex. He’s different than he’s been the last few days - not quite so despondent and put-upon. He’s devoted himself to action, and to competence; this is the Miles that ran a successful arms dealing empire before he’d even hit thirty. For a moment, Alex is caught by a wave of hope. He watches Miles strut off toward the hallway, mobile ringing, and for half a second everything almost looks possible. 

“I take it you’re working on a plan, then?” Alex turns back to Tinna, setting down his bowl. 

“Yes,” she lilts out, eyes scanning the notes in front of her. “We have an idea of the mechanics of it, but _people_ are usually the biggest issue in these sorts of things.” She sends him a look, then, and though he expects it to be suspicious, it’s something else entirely - pity, perhaps. He can’t quite pin it down. She looks like she wants to say more, but abruptly Sully appears from the living room and Alex ends up sitting on the carpet with him, adding the appropriate _uh-huh_ and _is that so_ when necessary as Sully explains in detail each of his toy fighter planes. It’s relaxing, and he’s still riding the high of Miles’s confidence, so he forgets any unease Tinna has inspired before it can fester. Down the hallway, he can hear Miles’s rhythmic cadence but not his words as he paces with his mobile to his ear. 

In the morning, though, things are different. 

Miles is already awake and sitting on the edge of the bed when Alex’s eyes blink open. He hasn’t decided if he’s going into work today; for appearance’s sake, he realizes he should, but he can’t muster up any need to rush when he’s presented with the way sunlight hits Miles’s bare back. It’s cold, and Alex is warm beneath the duvet, but something isn’t right. He stirs slightly beneath the covers, and Miles’s head turns. 

“Thursday,” he murmurs, and Alex doesn’t reply. A long silence stretches before he speaks again. “Do you trust me?”

Alex, his eyes only just visible above the blankets, doesn’t reply. The morning usually has a tendency to unburden him, but something in Miles’s tone gives him pause. “What do you have in mind?” 

Miles shifts around until he can hover over Alex, their eyes meeting briefly before he leans in for a kiss. Their lips meet, and Alex wonders when Miles’s kisses became answers rather than questions. 

“Come downstairs,” he murmurs, after a few long moments, lids still half closed and mouth only centimeters from Alex’s. Alex reaches a hand up to cup Miles’s face and he leans into it, eyes closing. Alex resists the urge to tell him everything will be alright. 

In the kitchen, Tinna is already up, but still in fleece pajamas, her bangs swept back by a hairband. Sully is eating cereal and going on about some upcoming event in school. No one has the heart to tell him that by Friday, they will either be dead or out of England for good. 

Miles is cracking eggs next to the stove when Tinna slides from her chair and approaches him. Alex looks up from his coffee just in time to see her murmur something to Miles - it’s not quite clandestine, but Alex is notably out of earshot. Miles glances back at him after Tinna’s moved on to the dishwasher, but he doesn’t say anything until Alex has a plate of eggs in front of him and Sully has been walked to the bus stop. 

“We need to talk,” Miles says quietly. 

Alex doesn’t disagree. 

Tinna picks uncomfortably at the table cloth as Miles puts his fork down. “We’ve got the beginnings of an exit plan. Josh has agreed to host us in Singapore until we find a more permanent solution. Obviously, though, the problem will be getting _to_ him without being snagged by your men or O’Malley’s.”

Alex frowns a little at the _your_ , but still asks hopefully, “But you’ve got ideas…?”

Miles gives a slow nod, making tentative eye contact. Alex feels his shoulder muscles tense to an even further degree. “As we have it now, you’d be a pretty integral part of the plan, Alex.” 

“What do you want me to do?” He finds it curious that no one’s actually asked him if he’s along for the whole ride, to Singapore and beyond. They’ve all, in tandem, assumed the answer to be a resounding _yes_. 

Miles, uncharacteristically, bites his thumbnail. In truth, though, the suspense has worn off - at this point Alex has made the connection, and has the misfortune of knowing what Miles is going to say before he says it. 

m m m

Tuesday night he heads back to his flat, mind already on what could possibly be essential enough to pack in the single carry-all he’s allotted himself. It’ll have to last him indefinitely, but he hasn’t the faintest idea how to fill it even halfway. 

He stares at the empty bag for a while in the half dark, then calls Matt. 

“Helders,” comes his distracted answer; he hasn’t looked at the caller ID, evidently. 

“I need your help,” Alex says immediately. “Or _we_ do, that is.”

There comes a long pause. “What do you need?”

“We’re leaving the country tomorrow,” replies Alex, eyes landing on Jamie’s left behind socks, still resting loudly over the arm of his settee. “Come over and I’ll explain.”

“Alright,” Matt sighs, as though he already knows what will be asked of him. Miles’s plan involves all of them completing a number of tenuous tasks, and it’s got a certain melodrama to it - not that Alex has any better ideas. He’s far from thrilled about his own part in all of this, but at this point he’s fully dialed into his mental and emotional disconnect. None of it feels real, and that’s no longer a disadvantage. 

He gathers up a few of his more durable shirts, and a few of his less objectionable trousers. There are a couple books worth holding onto as well, but he keeps to paperbacks in order to pare the weight down. Records turn out to be too bulky and delicate to be considered. Finally, it’s just Jamie’s socks staring him down, and he finds himself shoving them in the bottom corner of the bag before he’s even aware what he’s doing. Jamie may be finished with him, but the feeling is clearly not mutual. He wonders if it ever will be. 

Matt arrives by nine, and Alex makes sure to get him a drink before he begins to lay out the plan. As it turns out, it doesn’t make much difference. By the time he’s explained it to the best of his ability, Matt has his head in his hands. 

“I know it’s mad,” Alex says quietly. “You don’t have to understand. Like, why I’m doing it. It’s okay.”

“That’s good, ‘cause I don’t.” Matt rubs at the bridge of his nose, but looks up. “But I’ll do it anyways. For you.”

He sees Matt to the door, and for a moment they stand in a strange, loaded silence. “I suppose you won’t be coming back for visits, will you?” Matt says, and almost manages to snort at his own joke. 

“Pretty sure I’ll be hanged if I do, after all this.”

“This is fucking absurd,” he replies, and breaks into a full, half hysterical laugh. And Alex, after a moment, can’t help but join in. 

“You better fucking survive this,” Matt rasps, finally, and wraps him in a tight hug. 

“With any luck,” Alex murmurs in response, though it’s not much of a promise. These days, though, gray area is so everpresent that it’s almost welcome. 

m m m

He doesn’t sleep. He’s back in Beckenham before the sun rises, leaving behind his carry-all and changing into work clothes while Tinna, Miles, and Sully finish up the last of their packing. It’s a fairly major undertaking, but they’ll have to leave most everything behind - only what they can fit in the Audi is making it out of the country, if that. 

Still, the house feels strangely empty after they’ve finished, even though all the furniture is untouched. It’s already lost what made it distinct. By dawn, it’s barely recognizable. Alex is straightening his thin tie in the bathroom mirror when Miles wanders by the door on a final walk through. He pauses on the threshold. Alex runs one more comb through his hair, then turns to look at him.

Miles folds his arms over his chest. “So...this is it, then.”’

“Don’t say that,” Alex replies. “And don’t look so bloody tentative. You’re making me nervous.”

Miles looks almost taken aback by his vehemence, and lets out a snort. “Well, I never…”

Alex kisses him, then, and it’s the first one that feels like it’s properly two-sided. Miles reaches a hand out to squeeze his hip, then reluctantly pulls back. They meet eyes, and Alex waits for Miles to let slip something along the lines of _there’s still time to turn back_ or _you don’t have to do this_. But no words come forth, and Alex is grateful. They’re past platitudes. 

Outside, Tinna bestows on him a brusque _good luck_ , which he doesn’t take personally. Sully already looks concerned enough about this latest development, and Alex doesn’t want to add to the drama of it by making any sort of spectacle. So he leaves unremarkably, kissing Miles on the cheek one more time and tossing his duffel into the back of the Audi. 

He heads into work with the knowledge that when he returns, things will change very, very quickly. 

m m m

And they do.

m m m

When he awakes, it’s like time has turned backwards. 

This is a familiar place, and he’s met with familiar sounds - a steady, rhythmic beeping, and the mumble of voices above muted footsteps. He’s swathed in light, low quality fabric, his neck propped by flaccid pillows. He knows this place. 

And he knows the figure draped over the chair next to his bed.

“Matt,” he mumbles, through chapped lips. He can’t have been out very long - Matt’s wearing the same clothes as he was this morning and there’s no stubble on his chin. His eyelids flicker when Alex calls his name again.

It occurs to Alex, then, that Matt really is the most loyal creature he’s ever known. 

“How are you?” Matt asks, leaning forward and rubbing tiredly at his eyes. Alex diverts his gaze, briefly, to the window by his bed - it’s at least early evening, judging by the season and the state of the sky. 

“How did it go?” Alex replies, but flexes his right shoulder anyway. It’s been bound in gauze, but not a real bandage, which suggests there’s only bruising instead of bleeding. Still, there may be a scar: a new one, right over the old. He wonders if this one will heal better.

“You passed out from the shock. I had no choice but to halt the mission and call an ambulance,” Matt monotones, and though it’s good news, he doesn’t look anything but deflated. He continues with, verbatim, what will go into what will likely be his final report on the Kane case. “I had no way of knowing you were wearing a bulletproof vest, because you arrived late the morning of the operation. We did not expect violent confrontation. So, you entered the Beckenham residence first, with intent to arrest the mark. Kane shot. Despite the efforts of the arresting force team, your injury delayed Five enough for Kane to escape. Whereabouts currently...unknown.” He pauses. “Weller’s fucking livid.” 

Matt’s eyes are still on his hands when he finishes the prescribed explanation. Alex glances down at himself, and can’t hold down the bafflement at what has transpired. He thinks about a pair of brown eyes over the barrel of a pistol. Today, they were almost apologetic, if still calculating. _The shoulder, it’ll hurt less. And the jolt might still knock you out. You’ll have a disgusting bruise, but it’ll stall them. We’ll run._ Miles had not said sorry in advance, and Alex was glad. The disconnect, he’s come to realize, must always exist. Between bullet holes and ludicrous escape plans. It’s how things are. 

Miles always has had a flair for the dramatic, but the fact that he and Tinna’s plan has actually come through seems too good to be true. Or maybe it’s just about time that something Alex did goes according to how he plans it. 

“A new leaf,” he murmurs. Matt doesn’t ask, but he does look up. 

“I turned in my resignation,” Matt says, and though it should be an abrupt admission, Alex isn’t surprised. One can only lie so much before it begins to tangle uncomfortably around a rib cage, or a shoulder. 

“Thank you,” Alex says. “For everything--I owe you everything.”

“You’d do the same thing for me,” Matt sighs. He stands, looking rumpled and small. Alex had tried so hard not to drag Matt down with him, but it seems as if he has anyway. They’ve both been pulverized but Alex, at least, seems to be getting a chance at regrowth. “They’ve posted an officer outside your door. I’ll make sure he’s busy. Fifteen minutes.”

“Matt, I--”

“Don’t say anything.” Matt closes his eyes. “It’s all fine.”

Alex shimmies to the edge of the bed, and despite his rigidly wrapped shoulder, he still manages to return Matt’s crushingly secure hug. 

“Good luck, yeah?”

“You too,” Alex breathes. He’s forgotten that leaving requires goodbyes. He’s forgotten that goodbyes sting like the impact of a bullet through a kevlar vest.

Matt kisses him on the cheek and disappears out the door. Alex tries not to watch him leave, but fails. He waits fifteen minutes before slipping into his shoes and padding after him. 

The hallway is silent, save a nurse shuffling papers at a station to his left. She doesn’t spare him a glance when he strides past her, right arm held awkwardly so as to not jostle the bruised flesh. He makes it to the hospital lobby without incident - his injury had not precipitated a hospital gown, so he’s still clad in relatively nonchalant street clothes. The parking situation is a bit of a maze but, still, he finds what he’s looking for; a dark Audi, engine running, at the far end of the top level of the parking deck. 

And Miles, leaning against the bonnet, face obfuscated by dark sunglasses and a nervous, elated energy. 

“Alright?” he asks, nodding toward Alex’s shoulder. 

“Alright,” Alex replies, and leans into kiss him, briefly, on the side of his smile. 

Sully’s blonde head is just visible in the backseat, and he can see Tinna behind the tinted glass of the driver’s side. She nods, both an acknowledgement of Alex and an order. It’s time to move. Miles digs his hands from his pockets and opens the passenger door. “Shall we?”

And Alex, with only the slightest hesitation, climbs into the car and replies, “We shall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa a semi happy ending??? From me?? Bet you didn't see that coming.   
> Anyways, this story was insane. Even by my standards. I can't really decide if any of it makes sense but at this point I'm just enjoying the absurdity. Hence the reason for a somewhat shorter and less sentimental final author's note.  
> Regardless, thank you so much for all the kudos and comments! Y'all are the light of my life <3 And keep your eyes peeled for a _Spin_ sequel, coming in the New Year!

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on Tumblr: lafayette1777.tumblr.com


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